I'm not quite sure if I understand.. I back up to a external drive with no problems. Technically I'm using VMWare for my Ubuntu server but I've also verified that I can connect the drive to a machine natively and do restores from it with BackupPC so I'm sure native backups would work as well. I just add the external drive to a volume group, create a logical volume on it, format it with ext3, mount it under the backuppc home (I have it at /home/backuppc/backuppool) and away I go.
Currently I have the drive paritioned into two windows partitions and a linux. It's a 750Gb drive which is more then I need for backups right now so the rest goes to temp windows storage. When my backups get bigger, I'll be able to reformat one of the Windows paritions into ext3, greate a logical volume on it and add extend the backup pool onto it. It works great. Perhaps there's something I've missed here about not being able to use an external drive. "Martin Fisher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thank you for the various responses, and sorry to take up your time. > > It is now clear that trying to use backuppc is not really appropriate in > this case. > > I have now looked at a whole range of things, and unfortunately there > does not seem to be a straightforward tool that I can use in Ubuntu with > a GUI or web front end that will do what I want - automated incremental > and full backups to an external drive. I have tried a many things and > either I cannot understand how to use them or they simply don't actually > work. I will therefore return to a manual system of occasionally writing > a zip archive of my home drive to the external drive. It works but is > tiresome and has a number of problems. > > On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 13:20 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: >> Martin Fisher wrote: >> > Thank you for your patience! >> > >> > This is my aim: To set up backuppc to make daily incremental backups of >> > my home folder in Ubuntu to an external USB drive, and a weekly full >> > backup. This should occur each day after I finish work, perhaps at 7 pm, >> > and I would like backuppc to start automatically when I start the >> > computer and to send me a daily e-mail indicating the status of the >> > backup after it has completed. >> >> First you should probably understand that backuppc wasn't really >> designed to do any of those things. Normally it is set up to back up a >> bunch of remote hosts to an internal drive and not send notifications >> unless something is wrong. That doesn't mean it is impossible to do >> what you want, but don't expect it to be automatic. >> >> > These are my supplementary, less important aims: To have these backups >> > directed to two separate USB drives (yes, I have two) for safety, and to >> > also backup the essential Ubuntu configuration files so that I could >> > restore settings on another machine in case of catastrophe (for this I >> > need to know which directories to back up but I haven't figured this out >> > yet!). >> > >> > OK, I install backuppc with synaptic. It asks me which of four apache >> > servers I would like to configure automatically. I am unsure, so I tick >> > all four. It provides me with the following message: >> >> And by taking a pre-packaged version you'll have to make your changes >> mesh with the distribution packager's changes... >> >> > >> > BackupPC can be managed through its web interface: >> > http://martin-laptop/backuppc/ >> > >> > and I have a username (backuppc) and a password. >> > >> > So now I can see the web page for managing the backup. >> > >> > (I note that I don't really understand the difference between a server - >> > which is what I think I am looking at with the web page - and a host, >> > which I think is martin-laptop). >> >> The server is the machine doing the backups, a host is one of the >> targets. In your case these seem to be the same thing. >> >> > Through the web page I find the Documentation file, and note that I need >> > to specify what to back up and where. I therefore make the following >> > changes to config.pl using sudo gedit: >> > >> > $Conf{TopDir} = '/media/LACIE/backuppc'; >> >> This only works if you are doing an install from source/tarball. In the >> packaged versions the configure step has already been done and the >> directories become hard coded in the runtime programs. You can, >> however, replace the data directory with a symlink pointing to wherever >> your external drive is mounted as long as the cpool and pc directories >> are still on the same filesystem so hardlinks work between them (and be >> sure you've formatted the external drive as ext3 or equivalant >> filesystem with unix semantics). >> >> > >> > $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = '/home/Martin'; >> > >> > I don't really understand the difference between smb, rsync, tar etc but >> > I know that I have tar on Ubuntu and therefore I set >> > >> > $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'; >> >> That will work, but the normal method also involves connecting to the >> target machine via ssh to run the command. For your first attempt it is >> probably easiest to leave it that way and set up the ssh keys for a >> loopback connection. There is a more efficient way to use sudo instead >> but I've forgotten the details. >> >> > >> > Obviously I need to know how to start backuppc and to have backuppc >> > start automatically on boot. This is where I become unstuck. The >> > documentation states 'The installation contains an init.d backuppc >> > script..' but I don't know where it is. I also read 'BackupPC should be >> > ready to start. If you installed the init.d script, then you should be >> > able to run BackupPC with: /etc/init.d/backuppc start >> > >> > I wonder does this mean that, if I can find the init.d script, I will >> > still need to run this every time I start the computer, or is there a >> > way to run this automatically? >> >> The packaged versions should take care of this part of the setup for you. >> >> > I think I can understand how to do the daily scheduling, and I have >> > supplementary queries such as how to make the first full backup, but I >> > think I need to get backuppc started first, obviously. >> >> The web interface should tell you if it is not running, but I'd expect >> the package to start the server automatically or at least make it show >> up wherever Ubuntu does that sort of thing. >> > -- > Dr Martin Fisher > Editor, Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation > Fauna & Flora International, 4th Floor, Jupiter House > Station Road, Cambridge, CB1 2JD, UK > > e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > tel +44 (0)20 81238513 > skype martin_pescador > > Oryx online http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=ORX > Instructions for Contributors > http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=ORX&type=ifc > Online submissions http://www.epress.ac.uk/oryx/webforms/author.php > Personal subscriptions http://www.fauna-flora.org/membership.php > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper > from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going > mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. > http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 > _______________________________________________ > BackupPC-users mailing list > [email protected] > List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users > Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net > Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list [email protected] List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
