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0 years ago today the first version of raspiBackup was stored in my local cvs.

revision 1.1
date: 2013-08-07 21:28:14 +0200; author: framp; state: Exp; commitid: 10052029FC71A98602F;
Initial version
=============================================================================

 

This cvs unfortunately no longer exists because it would be interesting to see how the script has changed over the 10 years. Initially there were about 50 lines of code.

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raspiBackup has a new logo. Friendly forum members from the German Raspberry forum helped me to create one.
 
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The backup directory created by raspiBackup contains all information required to restore this backup also manually with standard Linux tools. The following page describes how to restore a normal tgz backup.

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An agile user of raspiBackup - Franjo-G - wrote a very convenient tool called raspiBackupDialog In a dialog driven way the most used options for backup and restore are queried. raspiBackup snapshots are supported. In particula the restore is very easy: You get a list of all existing backups and can select which one to use for the restore.

 

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raspiBackup allows to create a kind of snapshot with option -M. It's a normal backup with two special properties:

  1. Snapshots will not be deleted by the selected backup strategy and will stay there until they are manually deleted.
  2. Snapshots have a description which is the parameter for option -M. This description is appended at the end of the backup directory name.

This allows to create a snapshot besides the usual backup and you can use the description to remember the purpose of the snapshot. That's convenient if you plan a software update or any other major change of your system. If the update fails then you can restore the snapshot easily and start over. If the update was successful delete the snapshot in the backup directory.

 

There is also a Youtube video available which explains raspiBackup snapshots and includes a demo.

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Invocationsyntax and -options

raspiBackup has to be invoked as user root or with sudo. The invocation syntax is

raspiBackup.sh Option1 Option2 Option3 ... backupdirectory 
and starting with Release 0.6.6 you can omit the extension .sh
 

raspiBackup Option1 Option2 Option3 ... backupdirectory

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raspiBackup until now supported RaspbianOS only. Raspberries 4B with 8GB and Raspberries 400 allow to install Ubuntu as operating system and it's  heavily used. That's why raspiBackup will support Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server in next release.

I fortunately was able to buy a 8GB Raspi from the donations I got for raspiBackup to add and test the support for Ubuntu. 

Release 0.6.9 was published today (11/19/2023) and now raspiBackup supports also Ubuntu.

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Visit this page to get a ligh level overview about raspiBackup. Much more details you will find here.

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I just got a CM4 donated with 1GB main memory, 32GB eMMC and 128 GB NVMe. Thank you very much to the donator!

CM4 was already supported by raspiBackup but only running from a SD card, eMMC or USB boot. It's already possible to use NVMe when it's provided in an USB plug because it's exposed as a normal disk as /dev/sdx but there was no way to have NVMe plugged in in the PCI lane exposed as /dev/nvme.  Now I fortunately was able to add  this support to raspiBackup. This support is available now in release 0.6.8.

 CM4Parts

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raspiBackup - Supported hardware and software

 

raspiBackup is supported with RaspbianOS and Uvuntu and Raspberry hardware only. But raspiBackup can also be used successfully on different Raspberry compatible hardware with different Linux distributions. But note raspiBackup requires the /boot and /root partition used in RaspbianOS.

Just test raspiBackup on your environment and be happy if it works. But if it fails or you get error messages there is no support. You may create an issue in github and append the debug log and I will check whether the issue is minor and it's a low hanging fruit. But in any case the environment is unsupported.

 

Given the fact raspiBackup is maintained and supported for free

1) It's too expensive for me to buy all possible hardware required for tests

2) it's too expensive for me to setup and execute all test combinations

3) it's to expensive for me to execute all tests every time a new release will be published.

There exists a small script in github which tests whether the present environment is supported by raspiBackup. (see here)

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raspiBackupInstallUI and raspiBackup right now writes messages in German and English only. But both are able to write messages in any language from a coding point of view (I18N). Unfortunately I'm a German native speaker and can speak English and a little bit French and thus I'm unable to add any other language (L10N) and need help on this. Anybody who is willing to help to add support for a new language other than German and English is welcome. Just add your interest in a comment on this page and I will guide and help you to add new messages in your native language to raspiBackupInstallUI and raspiBackup.

Right now following languages are supported:

EN - English
DE - German
FI - Finnish
ZH - Chinese
FR - French

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Sometimes you don't want to restore a whole system but restore only some files or directories. That's not directly supported by raspiBackup. But given the fact raspiBackup was designed to restore a system from it's backups with plain Linux tools it's possible for all three backup types. But all activities have to be done on a Linux system because the tools used to retrieve the data are Linux tools. The most convenient way to retrieve backup data is offered by rsync. dd and tar require to execute some commands in the command line first.

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From time to time there will be a new raspiBackup version be created which includes new features, enhancements and bug fixes. This version will go though an automated regession test which tests the main backup- and restorefunction. Next all new features, enhancements and bug fixes will be tested again manually even they were tested during development. Now the existing version will be published as beta. Everybody will get notified with a smiley :D in the eMail subject and a dedicated message wll inform about the beta availability.  Now every raspibackup user can test the new beta version and to create a problem record if an issue is discovered. It's not possible to test all possible system environment configurations. Thus everybody who tests the beta will help to make sure there will no error been introduced in the new version.

Next page describes how to install the beta, how to uninstall the beta and revert to the previous version and how to create a problem record.