Single disk backups no minimal installation or live CD!!!!

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

I am trying to backup my Gentoo system with something other than the familiar backup options to me (live CD, other bootable system like windows or minimal linux, and any other active backups while the filesystem is mounted with rw, as opposed to ro , which I understand is generally discouraged.)

Generally, I don’t like the options because of interfacing between multiple disks.

What I’d like to do is to use the disk drive in my laptop to be handling the back up as well as having it be a location for the backup files (archives) and utility that is going to be executing the job. I could probably make use of the windows installation for that which is installed alongside gentoo already on my HP laptop, but it would involve installing more than what is needed.

I figure there could be a small utility and some minor changes to partitions that could address the backup issue of needing to have reading/writing be restricted during the bare metal backup. And if so, I'd like to implement it in either an experiment with a chroot environment, or else creating a even smaller live system for just backup purposes...does anyone know if that exists for Gentoo, or some other linux and unix-friendly languages?

[audiodef]

nm, stupid question, erase, erase.
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[Roman_Gruber]

Warning: My opinion, may be totally unrelated:


I do not recommend backup to the same drive, same model, same manufacturer drives.

My strategy, shortened.

I do create a full copy everytime from my internal laptop SSD to my external SSD. Than the external SSD is placed in my notebook, and is initalized (so it works). The internal drive is put on my shelf and is therefore my backup drive. The backup is instantly verified because the external drive is put to use, so any fails will result in a not working notebook. I use 3 drives in a cycle, so I have some older data when something goes wrong, e.g. screw up both drives. I can mostly rule out mistakes because I use lvm names instead of bad names like sdx, UUID, PUID and proper mount points.

I do have a 2nd 1TB HDD, but I consider that data as junk, or not backup worthy: e.g. distfiles, some other files which I may want to read....

Costs for Central Europe:

External USB 3.0 Case 2.5" SATA ~20 Euro
120 or 128GB SSD 2.5" SATA ~45 Euro
Sysrescue-cd ~1-2 Euro

Time: Less than a shower ~20 Min or below for 35GB to be transfered. 5 min to change drive and initialize it because of UEFI limitations. Hardware ASUS g75VW notebook.

--

I told you my way of backups. It is a full backup including everything, except junk e.g. distfiles ...

For others backups are just copy over the documents they created by hand.

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

Why not just backup locally and restore there? That's essentially what you are doing anyways... i guess my question could be better stated as far as cloning the disk to another physical location which is worthwhile i agree. Each of those disks (alt disk) could be accessed via network for backups so what purpose does removing the drives serve other than it could be fun and cool or to be testing it, inspecting it for other problems.

[lexflex]

Hi,

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

[The Doctor]

I think you are looking for rsnapshot. It basically uses rsync to make an incremental backup. It doesn't create an archive so you don't need to worry about that ball of wax. I've never had a problem with any of the backups I've made and I always run the backup as a cron job.

But in truth no backup system is going to be 100% safe on a running system, ever. It is a calculated risk. How critical is your data? How much risk are you willing to tolerate? What are you protecting against? These are all questions you should answer for yourself when designing a backup scheme.
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First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

Apologies if I take a while to respond. I'm currently working on the dematerialization circuit for my blue box.

[Goverp]

Like others, I don't see the point of backing up to the same device, but whatever. If you disk is ext{2,3,4} formatted, I've found I can boot Gentoo in single-user mode, and run the dump command (app-arch/dump) with the disk mounted r/o if you specify "-D" to put dumpdates on the target device (or tape!) instead of in /etc
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Greybeard

[bunder]

not sure if this is what you want, but this is what i use on one of my last ext3 systems...

weekly script, i chose sunday as its the least busy day of the week. adjust mtime on cleanup for retention policy.

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

This was more or less what I was trying to figure out. For those undecided about local backup, it may help to repeat back something that "bunder" mentioned, which was missing initially the use of a stage4 copy or backup that can be recovered in case of failure.

Thanks 2 all for the help

As a final note, and because I do not use a traditional boot loader such as grub or lilo, should that matter, or what else is typically included in a stage4 (is it the /boot folder either with or without the Bootloader?)

[LIsLinuxIsSogood]

Since the question was previously the bottom of post, is the stage4 backup of the boot partition usually inclusive of things other than the kernel, or could that be enough in theory (to restore a functional shell etc from which the rest of the file systems and all data would be accessible from)??

Ty

[C5ace]