Linux scheduled tasks : understanding CRON

JC · 22 Feb 2009 at 23:51

I've been using Ubuntu for about 6 months and have got into bad habits with regards to data backup compared to the organised system I ran on Vista (Robocopy/Acronis etc).

I'd like to achieve a daily backup of home directory with the ability to specify or exclude certain folders.

The situation regarding the backup is as follows:
Home directory in an ext3 partition will be backed up to /media/backup currently an NTFS partition.

I've seen various scripts, confusing a linux newbie like me, with options ranging from "cp" I guess a straight copy?, "tar", rsync and dirvish, the latter seems interesting as it uses a snapshot incremental based system.

I'm not sure if all those would work to an NTFS partition? Can anyone recommend which route I follow?

Many thanks

slylittlefox · 23 Feb 2009 at 00:38

I think Rsync can do differential backups, and compression. Will post a more detailed reply tomorrow

BigglesPiP · 23 Feb 2009 at 00:43

Are you backing up data to another partition of the same drive?

Because that is not a backup.

The only thing it would guard against is a mistake you make, and those soft of things don't tend to happen in /home.

JC · 23 Feb 2009 at 06:22

It's a separate NTFS partition on a different physical drive, I know it's still far from ideal but then I don't have other networked PC's here or an external drive.

ethos · 23 Feb 2009 at 19:45

I've just done something similar:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17979690

Create a .sh file and add:

#!/bin/bash
tar -cvzf /home/administrator/filename.tgz /folder to tar
cp /home/administrator/filename.tgz /drivetocopyto

Then you can add it to cron to do daily at say 7.30:

crontab -e

Then add:

30 19 * * * /home/administrator/backup.sh

Dj_Jestar · 24 Feb 2009 at 00:23

If you want delta'd bakups (i.e. incremental backups for space saving) then have a look at duplicity. It's great.