On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 12:07:55PM -0600, nisp1953 via Dng wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I recently installed Devuan Daedalus 5.0 and it is working great.
> Thanks very much. I need advice on ways to backup my /home user
> account. I have been using tar but I am hoping the list can advise me
> of a better backup method or Debian (Devuan) package that I can use.
> I'd prefer something that does incremental backups.

(sorry for th delay replying, but for a while the mailing list
was refusing my messages.)

I use rdiff-backup.

It backs up what has changed since the last backup. Of course the first
backup in a series contains everything.

It uses reverse differencing to remember the contents of old backups,
up to a time limit.

It will compress the backups if you ask it to. I do not.

It can do backups over the network. I found this useful when the
USB drives on the server started to fail. I used my LAN and my laptop
to back up the server onto my USB backup drives.

It figures out what has been changed either by the dates on the file,
or by actually comparing the contents (using something like rdiff),
your choice.

I keep two such backups. I make sure one is physically disconnected
from the machine while I'm making the other backup.

The contents of the backup disk are the only record rdiff keeps of
the backup, so this ensures that my two backup disks contain independent
streams of copies of the original hard drive.

I choose to do backups without compression.
The result is that I can read the backup disk as an ordinary
file system if I'm looking for lost files, and nothing is concealed
from me.

My server finally died around Christmas, and I am still didthering about
a proper replacement. I still have easy access to the files that
were on it, by simply mounting a backup drive on my laptop a an
ordinary ext4 file system. Read-only access -- I don't want to
mess up my backup, though I could if I needed to.

-- hendrik