Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
Bea Groves wrote: I wonder if someone can come up with a solution to a little problem? In the 'bad old days' when I used Windows there was a little program called 'Rapid Backup' that I used to monitor my My Documents folder on a continuous basis. When a file was written to or modified within the folder (or any subfolder) then it was immediately copied by Rapid Backup to an 8Gb SD card which I kept permanently plugged into the PC for the purpose. It was a really good system, and I'm looking for similar software in Ubuntu (I'm running Natty). I don't know of anything that does this, but I'm also not really sure what the point is. I'd have thought that more useful would be a backup taken every hour, say, so that you can easily revert human-error sorts of problems. There's several tools for that sort of thing. The life expectancy of SD cards is such that I'd expect it to fail long before your (presumably) spinning-platters primary disk if you're writing the same data to both, so it's not particularly good protection against hardware failure, either, except insofar as the chance of one of the SD cards failing at the same time as the primary disk is still relatively low. -- Avi -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
On 20/11/11 16:23, Bea Groves wrote: a) Monitor the Documents folder (and all subfolders) on a continuous basis b) If a file or folder is created or modified, then copy the changes to another drive or folder of my choice (e.g. an SD card) I'm using the Ubuntu One cloud to do exactly that - and it syncs file in the folders I've chosen back to my netbook whenever I'm using that. I also use rsync to backup to a second hard drive from time to time, but that does not monitor file changes in real time - it just does a daily check and sync. It's quite easy to write a script to run rsync. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
On Nov 20, 2011 4:24 PM, Bea Groves beagro...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] To reiterate, all the software has to do is: a) Monitor the Documents folder (and all subfolders) on a continuous basis b) If a file or folder is created or modified, then copy the changes to another drive or folder of my choice (e.g. an SD card) I have yet to find anything that does this, or that does it without entailing a lot of scripting knowledge (at which I'm rather a newbie!). Incron will do this. I have it set up to create a symlink when I plug in my USB drive. You configure it with a path to watch and a script to run when something under that path changes. I don't have access to my config file at the mo. I think the man page is good though. HTH, Neil. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
Hi Barry! I'd forgotten about Ubuntu One! Just switched it on and logged in. That, together with an rsync periodic (daily?) backup to the SD card might be enough of a belt-and-braces approach to cover the issue. Any idea what a bash script for this job would look like? ;-) On 20/11/11 16:56, Barry Drake wrote: On 20/11/11 16:23, Bea Groves wrote: a) Monitor the Documents folder (and all subfolders) on a continuous basis b) If a file or folder is created or modified, then copy the changes to another drive or folder of my choice (e.g. an SD card) I'm using the Ubuntu One cloud to do exactly that - and it syncs file in the folders I've chosen back to my netbook whenever I'm using that. I also use rsync to backup to a second hard drive from time to time, but that does not monitor file changes in real time - it just does a daily check and sync. It's quite easy to write a script to run rsync. Regards,Barry. -- Beatrix E. Groves BA Hons (Educ) LCGI MAPTT MIFL QTLS President, Institute for Learning (IfL) General Secretary, Association of Part-Time Tutors (APTT) ~~ Email: beagro...@gmail.com Web:http://www.beagroves.net Blog: http://beagroves.tumblr.com ~~ Random Quote of the Day (chosen by my computer) - 'You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.' (Al Capone) -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
I use LuckyBackup, its a GUI front end for rsync. Its pretty fast at copying over files that have been changed and has an optional feature to delete those that you've got rid of. Although I don't think it has a way of continually monitoring for changes. I only use it for doing an occasional backup of my entire home folder to an external USB harddrive. Ivan -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
On 20/11/11 17:23, Bea Groves wrote: I'd forgotten about Ubuntu One! Just switched it on and logged in. That, together with an rsync periodic (daily?) backup to the SD card might be enough of a belt-and-braces approach to cover the issue. Any idea what a bash script for this job would look like? ;-) Answered off list as script attached. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
Barry Drake wrote: On 20/11/11 17:23, Bea Groves wrote: I'd forgotten about Ubuntu One! Just switched it on and logged in. That, together with an rsync periodic (daily?) backup to the SD card might be enough of a belt-and-braces approach to cover the issue. Any idea what a bash script for this job would look like? ;-) Answered off list as script attached. Aw, c'mon, other people might find the same solution useful :) -- Avi -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
On 20/11/11 19:53, Avi Greenbury wrote: Aw, c'mon, other people might find the same solution useful :) OK - sorry if I annoy some folk here's the script I use. Zenity (the gui bit) is messy and complicated, but useful. Regards,Barry. -- Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team. http://ubuntuadverts.org/ #! /bin/bash if zenity --question --text Do you want me to backup your files? = 0; then #rsync -r --progress /home/barry /media/hda1/backups/barry_pc | tee (zenity --progress --text=Backing up files ) /home/barry/backup_log.txt rsync -r --exclude=.* --progress /home/barry /media/storage/backups/barry_pc | tee (zenity --progress --pulsate --text=Backing up files ) /home/barry/backup_log.txt killall zenity #rsync -r --progress /home/barry/.evolution /media/hda1/backups/barry_pc/barry | tee (zenity --progress --pulsate --text=Backing up files ) /home/barry/backup_log.txt killall zenity rsync -r --progress /home/barry/.mozilla /media/storage/backups/barry_pc/barry | tee (zenity --progress --pulsate --text=Backing up files ) /home/barry/backup_log.txt rsync -r --progress /home/barry/.thunderbird /media/storage/backups/barry_pc/barry/thunderbird | tee (zenity --progress --pulsate --text=Backing up files ) /home/barry/backup_log.txt #zenity --info --text=File backup in progress #rsync -r /home/barry /media/storage/backups/barry_pc killall zenity sleep 30 | tee (zenity --info --text=Backup completed sucessfully) fi -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Watch and backup folder
Hi! Thanks for that suggestion, as it made the rsync command line easy to sort out (the LuckyBackup GUI lets you dry-run the rsync settings and then copy the commands to the clipboard). I used this to cobble together a bash script that will do an once-a-day incremental copy of the Documents folder to the SD card, and otherwise let Ubuntu One handle the regular monitoring and backing up of new files to the remote cloud. Two backups should keep the files safe! ;-) Seems to be working fine. On 20/11/11 19:21, Ivan Wright wrote: I use LuckyBackup, its a GUI front end for rsync. Its pretty fast at copying over files that have been changed and has an optional feature to delete those that you've got rid of. Although I don't think it has a way of continually monitoring for changes. I only use it for doing an occasional backup of my entire home folder to an external USB harddrive. Ivan -- Beatrix E. Groves BA Hons (Educ) LCGI MAPTT MIFL QTLS President, Institute for Learning (IfL) General Secretary, Association of Part-Time Tutors (APTT) ~~ Email: beagro...@gmail.com Web:http://www.beagroves.net Blog: http://beagroves.tumblr.com ~~ Random Quote of the Day (chosen by my computer) - We are Borg. Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
