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I noticed there are a lot of raspiBackup users who use dd as backup method. In particular users which work primarily on Windows  use dd because they can restore a dd backup on Windows with win32diskimager or equivilent tools. There is a certain risk with dd which doesn't exist with tar of rasync. That's why I suggest better to use tar or rsync .

 

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Depending on the backup method used in raspiBackup you should choose the right filesystem on your backup partition. Following table lists the different filesystems per backup method.

impossible: not possible, restricted: limited, possible: possible, plus: suggested

 

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A lot of time people ask how the rsync backup type works and how hardlinks are used. Following article describes what happens when files are created and deleted on the file system in the backup process and how hardlinks are used.

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Whenever an upgrade to a new version of raspiBackup is executed it's tested whether the new version has new configuration options. If there are new configuration options used the local configuration file will be merged into a new file with the new configuration file while upgrading raspiBackup. Following page describes in detail what's going on during a configuration update.

Note

If a version less than 0.6.5 is upgraded the configuration file merge has to be started manually after upgrading. Following command will start the configuration update:

sudo raspiBackup.sh --updateConfig
 

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Starting with release 0.6.5 of raspiBackup an itelligent rotation strategy of your backups is supported. It's also called GFS (grandfather-father-son backup). The implementation was inspired by Manuel Dewalds article Automating backups on a Raspberry Pi NAS

raspiBackup retains following backups per default if a daily backup is created:

1) Backup of the current day and the last 6 days

2) Backup of the current week and the last 3 weeks

3) Backup of the current month  and the last 11 months

4) Backup of the current year and the last two years

If weekly backups are created there will be no daily backups kept. Different retention values for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly can be defined with an option, e.g. if you want to retain weekly, monthly and yearly backups. Keep in mind the weekly backup day then will become the day of the weekly and monthly backup: If you configure Monday as the weekly backup day your monthly backup will be the first Monday of every month. Yout yearly backup will be the first Monday of the year. Iy you create a weekly backup every Sunday the monthly backup will be the first Sunday of the month and the yearly backup will be the first Sunday of the year.
 

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I finally picked myself up and created a video about raspiBackup and published it on Youtube. Topics in the video are

  1. Introduction of raspiBackup
  2. Visit of the most important websites for raspiBackup
  3. Visit of github which is used as a question- and issue handling tool for raspiBackup
  4. Live installation of raspiBackup with the menu driven installer

Slides used in the video can be downloaded here.

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Users of raspiBackup in the world (Status 01/2024)

Countries: 70

 

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In general using the installer is the fastest method to install raspiBackup. The installer also can be used to install raspiBackup with it's default configuration via the commandline. If you want to install raspiBackup manually execute the following steps:

 

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Following pages describe different usage scenarios and configurations. They should help to find the right usage configuration out of the various configuration options of raspiBackup. Later on these usage scenarios can be customized further. An overview of all option is available here. The different ways to restore a backup are described here.

All configurations which don't use a dd backup save an external rootfilesystem together with the SD boot partition. If the USB bootmode is used and no SD card is used any more the whole rootpartition is also saved.

 

Usage scenarios described:

1a. A Windows user wants to backup his Raspberry and restore it with windisk32imager on Windows.

1b. A Windows user has a 32GB SD card but uses only 12GB and 12GB should be saved only.

1c. A Windows user wants to use pishrink to create a minimal backup image.

2. Raspberry should be saved very fast. Backuppartition is a nfs mounted EXT4 partition which is provided by a Synology.

3. Raspberry should be saved on a Samba mounted filesystem, which is provided by a Windows box.

4. A snapshot should be saved because there are some major changes planned and it should be possible to revert quickly.

5. A USB boot system backup should include an additional partition.

6. Raspberry should be saved on a local USB stick or a local USB disk.

 

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Any recognition of raspiBackup development- and maintenance effort and any support is greatly appreciated. There exist following donation alternatives:

1) Become a github sponsor for raspiBackup

2) Paypal: The eMail framp att linux-tips-and-tricks dott de  is known by PayPal and everybody who owns a Paypal account can donate to this eMail.

3) Neither one: Just contact me with at the eMail above and we will find a solution. For example I already received multiple times donations in a good old postal letter :-)

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raspiBackup is developed primarily on a Linux desktop. But finally raspiBackup is tested on a real Raspberry. There exist various raspibian images on disk which are restrored with raspiBackup on a SD card and/or USB stick and then the new or changed functionality of raspiBackup ist tested manually.

At some point in time a new version of raspiBackup has to be published. Initially I tested a lot of different variants by hand which takes a long time and reduces the number of my SD cards.  Therefore I set up a Raspberry simulation environment on Linux. Now every new raspiBackup version is regression tested in the simulation environment. That's much faster and I don't have to buy new SD cards all the time any more.

On the following picture you can see a 3B Raspberry I use for tests together with various SD cards of different size and USB sticks.

 

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raspiBackup has some helper scrips which are available on github for download.

1) raspiBackupWrapper.sh : Helps to do additional stuff before and after invocation of raspiBackup. The backuppartition is mounted already before starting raspiBackup and unmounted if it wasn't mounted when starting. Some basic bash scripting knowlege is required to customize the script for individual needs.

2) raspiBackupNfsWrapper.sh: Check if a NFS server is online and start raspiBackup. Don't start raspiBackup if the server is offline. This script can be used out of the box. Some constants regarding the nfs server have to be customized.

3) raspiBackupRestore2Image.sh: This script allows to convert a tar or rsync backup which was created in normal backup mode into a dd image. pishrink is used to make sure the image is as small as possible. kmbach suggested to create this script. No customization of the script required.

4) raspiImageMail.sh: THis script was created by raspiBackup user kmbach. He wanted to get an eMail at the end of raspiBackupRestore2Image.sh. eMail configuration is extracted from raspiBackup configuration file.

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raspiBackup creates a backup which contains all required information to restore a backup manually. User Micha wanted to restore a backup manually and kindly documented the steps in detail in a comment in German. I transleted his comments into English:

 

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