Create Backup with Back In Time Linux Backup Solution

Create Linux System Backup with Back In Time Linux Backup Solution. Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux inspired from “flyback project” and “TimeVault”. The backup is done by taking snapshots of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure or file at a certain point in time.

Snapshots are protected from accidental deletion or modification since they are read-only by default. The super-user can delete intermediate snapshots to save space, but files and directories that existed before or after the deletion will still be accessible.

Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux inspired from “flyback project” and “TimeVault”. The backup is done by taking snapshots of a specified set of directories.

Currently there are two GUI available for this Back In Time: Gnome and KDE 4 (>= 4.1).
All you have to do is configure:

Where to save snapshot
What directories to backup
When backup should be done (manual, every hour, every day, every week, every month)

Now we have a backup solution software equivalent to Apple’s TimeMachine on Linux called Back In Time. The alternative applications for Linux to hande Linux data backup solution similiar to the TimeValut and FlyBack. Both of them are discontinue program so the Back In Time is the best backup solution tool for Linux today.

What is the Linux Program Called Back In Time Really ?

Keep in mind that Back In Time is just a GUI. The real magic is done by rsync (take snapshots and restore), diff (check if something changed) and cp (make hard links).

Back In Time acts as a “user mode” backup system. This means that you can backup/restore only folders you have write access to (actually you can backup read-only folders, but you can’t restore them).

create linux backup create linux backup image create linux backup server create linux backup script linux create backup file linux create backup user linux create backup tar linux create backup directory linux create backup file with date linux create backup root user linux create backup partition howto linux backup create bootable linux backup howto backup linux server howto backup linux system howto backup linux partition create iso backup linux linux create incremental backups linux create full backup linux create database backup linux create folder backup create a linux backup image create a linux backup server create a backup linux linux create a backup of a file create a backup user linux create automatic backup script linux linux make backup copy of file linux create backup disk image linux make backup file linux make full backup

If you want to run it as root you need to use “su” (command line), “gksu” (Gnome) or “kdesudo” (KDE).

A new snapshot is created only if something changed since the last snapshot (if any).
A snapshot contains all the files from the selected directories (except for exclude patterns). In order to reduce disk space it use hard-links (if possible) between snapshots for unchanged files. This way a file of 10 MiB, unchanged for 10 snapshots, will use only 10MiB on the disk.

When you restore a file ‘A’, if it already exists on the file system it will be renamed to ‘A.backup.<current data>’.
For automatic backup it use “cron” so there is no need for a daemon, but “cron” must be running.
Starting from version 0.9.24 permissions and user/group are stored in a special file. This way you can even save/restore files from a NTFS/FAT drive without losing this informations (NOTE: FAT don’t support hard-links).

How to Install Back In Time on Linux – The Apple Time Machine Alternative

You can install this great program by adding PPA to your Linux system. Open your Terminal and type these commands, please enter one per line:

sudo add-apt-repository
ppa:bit-team/stable
sudo apt-get install backintime-gnome

NOTE: You can also install Back In Time from Software Center, for Linux Mint user go to Start Menu >> Administration >> Software Manager then type and search backintime, you will find it the install. But please note if you install from Software Center, you will get an older version of this software.

Now you can open Back In Time program after install on Linux by clicking Start Menu >> Administration >> Back In Time (root)

Back In Time Review Program on Linux

This is the best backup tool for the Linux system such as restore point on Windows but it is more than that. Back In Time does incremental backups so it is fast. the best thing is that the backups can be viewed with just a file browser (including older snapshots) so when disaster strikes, there is no complicated installation and configuration required to access the backups on another computer / the repaired computer.