Back in Time (as root)

[Stephen]

Would someone please tell me if it is possible to use Back in Time to backup directories under root, such as /etc, /usr, /var, and how I could do this?

According to the website How-To Geek, in its article of April, 2012, entitled, How to Back Up Your System with Back in Time

www.howtogeek.com/ 110138/ how-to-back-up-your-linux-system-with-back-in-time/

“Back In Time installs two shortcuts – “Back In Time” and “Back In Time (root).  The root version runs with root permissions, which are required to access and back up certain system files.”  (This article is specifically referencing the use of Back in Time on *buntus.)

Some years ago, I started to investigate Back in Time, and at that stage when it was installled on PCLOS, (from memory) there appeared two entries in the main menu (Back in Time and Back (root)).  Back in Time, on my current system however, does not display the Back in Time (root) option/entry.  Has this been removed from the application in the repository?

I have used Deja Dup successfully, to backup (daily) /home, /etc, /usr and /var (I have excluded some recommended files/folders – e.g. tmp folders), but I prefer the Back in Time application.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

[harley]

I wonder why you wouldn't use a higher level backup solution or just use a custom RSYNC command?

That's all I use. rsync to a big drive and cp -a to a directory named to the current time. Never lost anything.

Touch wood.

 

[Stephen]

Thanks for your reply, harley.

On another thread (from 2010), TravisN000 wrote the following:

I believe that BackInTime, FlyBack, and TimeVault are also essentially just rsync front ends..  the "feature" that makes them different is that they save the changes to your system incrementally so that you can still access accidentally deleted files, or restore to any one of multiple saved back-ups (without actually having multiple full back ups).

I believe they both can be used to back up the entire system, but would have to be run with root permissions.

I would like to avail myself of the above-mentioned features of Back in Time.  I currently backup my /home directory with Back in Time.  Does anyone know if Back in Time can still be used to backup directories requiring root permissions, in PCLOS?  If so, how is this done?

[menotu]

luckyBackup can open as either user or root.