Backup Strategies for TUXEDO OS - TUXEDO Computers

Backups are an essential part of securing your data. We suggest the easiest way to do this with KDE Plasma. There are two backup concepts that should ideally complement each other.

System image and backup

A system image is a bootable, bit-exact image of your installation. If it is so badly damaged that repairing it is too costly, you restore the created image and then have a 1:1 copy of your installation at the time when the image was created. A backup in our case is a copy of selected data or your whole home directory, which is created automatically by an application according to your time specifications or manually. The data can be restored individually or as a whole to a working system.

With both forms of secured data, it is important that the backup or image is not stored on the same hard drive because if that breaks, the data, and the backup are lost. Depending on the importance of the data, it should be backed up to an external hard drive, another computer or a remote server. Data that cannot be replaced are best stored additionally on a USB stick or an external hard drive in a location outside your four walls. This way, the data is also protected against fire and water damage.

Two-step backup strategy

In this article, we present a two-step strategy of backing up your home directory and securing the rest of the system via a bootable image. The backups of the home directory are used to restore accidentally deleted or damaged files without much effort. The bootable image does not include the home by default, and backs up the rest of the system so that it can be restored as a whole in the event of an unrecoverable or unbootable installation.

Backup of the home directory with the Plasma Desktop of TUXEDO OS 2

There is a huge number of applications that create backups on Linux. This ranges from complex enterprise solutions like Bakula and cross-platform cloud solutions like CloudBerry Backup to apps for home users like BackInTime and scripts based on Rsync. In terms of operation, they range from command line operation like Borg or Restic to GUI applications like DejaDup and Lucky Backup.

We present a simple solution for home use called Kup, which is integrated into Plasma's system settings. You can find it in the System settings sidebar under Personalisation » Backups. After opening the application, the first thing you do is check Backups Enabled and then click New Backup Plan.

The configuration interface for a new backup plan will then appear, where you can create several plans in parallel if necessary. The sidebar first deals with the Backup Plan. You can choose between Versioned Backup and Synchronized Backup. The former creates a backup that is modelled on Git's versioning, works incrementally, but does not overwrite older backups. It is the recommended backup method. Since the data is created in the background by an application called bup in Git package format as an archive, it cannot be restored in the file manager, but only via Kup.

It is good to know that the first variant works independently of the file system on the target drive. You can use NTFS or FAT32 in addition to the native Linux file systems. The second variant is just a synchronization of source and destination folders. If a file is deleted from the source folder, it also disappears from the destination folder. This method is therefore unsuitable as a sustainable backup.

In the next tab, labelled Sources, select the directories to be backed up. Here you select the home directory or a subset within it. It makes no sense to tick other areas of the file system because Kup lacks the extended rights to handle these.

The Destination is defined in the next tab. You select one of the connected external drives. It is important to note that although the directory on the target drive is displayed below, it is not created. You have to create it yourself before the backup and enter the chosen name below.

Under Schedule you decide between Manual Activation, Interval or Active Usage Time. The first two settings are self-explanatory, while the third creates a new backup when the backup destination is available and the configured time interval has passed since the last backup.

Under the Advanced tab you will find further settings like the inclusion of hidden files or the exclusion of folders or files according to certain patterns. Once all the desired settings have been made, finish the configuration at the bottom right by clicking Apply. You will then receive a notification from Kup and can create a first backup. Before confirming this, consider at what time you want your backups to be created. If you create the first backup at noon and have selected a daily backup for the time period, further backups will also be created at noon.

After the first backup, you can check the status in the system tray on the right.

If you now click on Back to overview in the upper-left corner, you will see your backup plan, and you can Duplicate, Configure or Remove it on the right. The Restore button takes you to a file selection dialogue where you can specify the location of the backup you want to restore and then browse and restore the backup.

Create bootable system image with Timeshift

With the Timeshift app, you can easily create system images, manage them and restore them when needed. Similar tools can be found with System Restore for Windows and as Time Machine for macOS. Timeshift masters system images via Rsync under the ext4 file system, as well as snapshots with Btrfs. The developer explicitly points out that the program is not a replacement for backups: By default, it does not back up the user's home directory. It should therefore be seen as a supplement to backups. With Timeshift, you should secure only system files.

Installation and configuration

You install Timeshift in the Discover application by typing timeshift in the top left search and then clicking Install. Alternatively, install the application in Konsole with the command sudo apt update && sudo apt install timeshift.

Initial setup

After launching the application for the first time, create a backup plan by first deciding what type of backup you want to make. For TUXEDO OS, leave the choice at Rsync, unless you have chosen Btrfs when installing the system. In the next step of the wizard, you decide where to store the snapshots. External devices intended for storage must have a Linux file system. Remote destinations are not supported by Timeshift.

Under Schedule you select the frequency for creating the backups. The offer ranges from hourly to daily to weekly to monthly. In addition, a backup of the installation at system startup can be selected. Here, you also determine how many snapshots are kept in each case. In the Users tab, you could add the home directories of your user and root, which are not included by default, to the backup. In the Filter section, you specify which files and directories are to be excluded from the backup. Note the data already excluded by default under Summary. The filter system follows a logic that you have to internalize first. A detailed explanation can be found in an article on Timeshift's functions. As this is the only comprehensive explanation of the filter system we could dig up, you will have to translate this from German. After saving the settings, you can create a first backup as a test by hitting Create in the upper-left corner.

The purpose of creating an image of your system is to easily restore an installation that no longer works. Unlike some backup applications, Timeshift does not use a proprietary file format; hence, it allows you to manually restore individual files and directories. A rollback of the entire system is done either from the running system with a subsequent reboot, from another installed distribution or via a live medium.

To restore from the still functioning running system, select the snapshot you want to restore and click Restore in the menu bar. Then select the target drive and optionally adjust the bootloader if the default fails the subsequent reboot.

In the next window, Timeshift performs a test run and then lists all the files it will restore. The last window shows the relevant partitions again. If you click Next here, the recovery will start, and you can follow its progress in Konsole.

If you are restoring the system from a live medium or another computer on your home network, Timeshift will graphically display the progress instead. When the process is complete, reboot the system. Timeshift can also be controlled entirely from the terminal. All options are shown by the command timeshift --help. An alternative to Timeshift is Rescuezilla.