[solved] backing up the entire home-folder of my notebook: methods & procedures on command line: rsync, tar... etx:

thedighubs

Member
Nov 21, 2024
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good evening dear friends, 🤩

btw: tomorrow i am one year in this great awesome forum ... 🤩 🎊

doing a backup of the entire home-folder of my notebook - rsync, tar, - which methods, means are the best? note: i want to archive is to copy just everything from my home directory to an external drive

Including the following data with all the stuff like :
  • hidden files
  • documents
  • browser bookmarks and profiles
  • application settings
to say what is needed: important first thoughts: i do not want to copy the entire filesystem (/) no not: — that said i think that this will cause severe and serious permissions problems, So to spell it out clearly: system files are not needed, and it risks copying mounted system paths.
What i need is the entire user’s home directory, because all personal data that i am interested are inside /home/<username>
that said: all hidden files ( guess that all that stuff is quite starting with the following "sign" .) are probably included there ( as i think herein are the following datasets: browser profiles, app configs, SSH keys, etc.)

hmm do i really need system-level settings, well i can back up only specific directories.
the main goal i want to achieve is just to copy all stuff and everything from my home directory to an external drive
hmm - i guess that this can be done safely and fully with one command in terminal.
that said: i think that this can be done safely and fully with one so calles "onliner command".

the question is: hmm what is the cleanest possible method to back up everything in my home directory (including all hidden files) before reinstalling.

some preliminary assumptions on the process - ideas how to start this:

To backup the Entire Home Directory (where everything i need is included) - i think i have to make sure my external drive is mounted - Afaik - usually it appears somewhere like:

Code:
/media/<myusername>/<drive-label>/

i think that we can verify with:

Code:
 bash ls /media ls /media/<myusername>/

update after doing some research i found out. - there are some command that support me here - and that help out.. tar and rsync - perhaps these two procedures help here:

well regarding tar:

tar
packs all the files into a one tiny single file "archive, " which can then be compressed to save space - ant a tar file that can be very handy and easy to port over.


...... regarding the rsync:

afaik the rsync will copy exact files, and besides that it can speed up by only copying what has changed - thats pretty very smart and clever. so i thnk that the concrete commands then would look like so:

Code:
tar -cJpf /media/<the concrete username>/bkup.tar.xz /home/<username>

rsync -aHAX --progress /home/<the concrete username>/ /media/<username>//

but well - a good solution could be to do this with rsync


Code:
rsync -rtv source_folder/ destination_folder/

    r for recursive copying of directories
    t for preserving modification times
    v for increased verbosity

well can i do this so:
.... any ideas!?

Look forward to hear from you

greetings -
ps. keep up the great forum - it rocks:)🎊🤩
 
Last edited:

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
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I use LuckyBackup. It's just a graphical frontend for rsync, but it makes it easy just poking around with a mouse to set it up.
 
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thedighubs

Member
Nov 21, 2024
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good day dear lskllr :cool:
many thanks for the quick reply - great to hear from you!

just installed LuckyBackup and going to try it out tomorrow.

thank you alot for your awesome support - and the great idea-exchange.

greetings
:)
btw: i mark the thread as solved


looks gtreat

1763799187866.png


:)
 
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