You just have to find some tools and services that are "fire and forget."
You just lost 99.99% of the population.
I'm ok to pay for it but:
1 - I need the client to use encryption and be open source
2 - It needs to run on linux
3 - It needs to backup files in arbitrary locations, including spanning several partitions (one NTFS, one ext3)
4 - It needs good filtering / curation capabilities
5 - Restore should have great granularity, and I should be able to browser the archive without having to unpack it all
6 - it needs to be easy to setup. I don't want to setup my own instance or mess with config files.
I've never found a tools that could do all that. One of those always fail, and sometimes the tool promise all of them, but doesn't even manage to backup. Some backup only partially, missing a files. Some backup, and don't restore. Some can only restore the all archive. Some don't encrypt. Some are close source, or only available on Mac and Linux. Some will store wrong files, and you can't them out of the backup.
It's crazy that in 2021, the state of backup sucks so much.
So have 2 backups on 2 different hard drives for all my files. One with "way back machine", the other one with a simple cp. Then I take essential files, and I put them on a usb drive.
My only remote backup are githup repo and emails.
Any suggestion?
> It needs to run on linux
That right there is going to imply some level of knowledge from the user. Expecting a zero-config install for Linux is pushing it to begin with.
> It needs to backup files in arbitrary locations, including spanning several partitions (one NTFS, one ext3)
And
> It needs good filtering / curation capabilities
And
> it needs to be easy to setup. I don't want to setup my own instance or mess with config files.
Are pretty much mutually exclusive. If you want it to be powerful you'll need to do the work to configure it. If you don't want to do the work it's not going to meet your needs, period. No product exists that will meet all of these criteria, even for Windows. I don't think a product exists that would meet half of them, and certainly if it does it's not open source.
What you really want is rsync over SSH to a ZFS volume with encryption enabled, or some other CoW filesystem that lets you do snapshots and access them online.
If you want to get close, go buy a Synology NAS and set up a nightly rsync cron to it, then set it up to archive to AWS Glacier. That'll get you most of the way to your ideal, and it'll be done instead of perfect.
How so? Dropbox is zero config install for linux.
> Are pretty much mutually exclusive. If you want it to be powerful you'll need to do the work to configure it.
I never said zero config, I said easy to configure. Firefox has plenty of configuration nobs, but it's easy to configure it.
> What you really want is rsync over SSH to a ZFS volume with encryption enabled, or some other CoW filesystem that lets you do snapshots and access them online.
No because that's very complicated. I've done it in the past, and just the fact I have to manage a VPS to do so is more than what I want to do.
I've used rsync as well, it's again, too much scripting, meaning to much margin for errors.
Apple Time machine for linux is what I want, with remote capabilities.
You don't want to set up a VPS, even though I mentioned nothing about one. I said to buy an appliance, same as a Time Capsule or whatever that Apple thing used to be called.
You think rsync+SSH+snapshot is complicated, but you don't know that Time Machine is exactly that, just hidden from you so if anything goes wrong it's a black box that you can't recover from.
You think rsync is too much scripting - what are you trying to do that requires scripting beyond `rsync -aP src dest`?
You've DQ'd the majority of backup services with your first requirement. You want what you want, but realize you're doing it.
The problem, I think, is less in finding them and more simply knowing that keeping offsite backups is important (or any backups at all for that matter).
Edit: especially given the prompt of someone who is impared, very young or otherwise 'less able' whatever that might mean to you.
Please share.
1. Set up a backup regime
2. Set up a password vault
Since Time Machine is in addition to other backup methods, they don't need to make an effort to keep a Time Machine drive offsite.
Edit /etc/netatalk/afp.conf:
[Time Machine]
path = /path/to/backups
time machine = yes
For laptops I would aim for a setup where the drive is connected to whatever dock solution is in place. MacOS would backup automatically while the laptop was docked.
This happened to me at one point and the culprit ended up being that I had failed to exclude the folder holding my VMs.
In these COVID times, my laptop rarely leaves that desk, but even when it does there's only one cable to plug it all -- monitors, ethernet, various other peripherals, speakers, power -- into my laptop.
You just have to find some tools and services that are "fire and forget."
This is what I do:
1. All my working files are in my Dropbox account (or my corporate Dropbox account). I did this initially to support working off two machines interchangeably, but the fact of the matter is that this creates an easy versioned backup of your "live" files. Nowadays, my Dropbox is fully mirrored on TWO backup computers here in my office (ie, a spare machine and an old machine).
Setup Effort: Minimal. Ongoing Effort: Almost zero.
2. Because I use a Mac, I have Time Machine. It's glorious and can save your butt. It's the ONLY of these mechanisms I've ever had to use at scale (after a break-in and a stolen laptop). It worked flawlessly. Use it if you can. Every year or so, I get a new TM drive and archive the old one.
Setup Effort: VERY Minimal. Ongoing Effort: Zero.
3. I also use Backblaze for offsite backup security. I happen to live on the gulf coast, so major storms are a concern, but there's probably some house-eating danger wherever YOU live.
Setup Effort: Moderate. Ongoing Effort: Minimal.
4. Finally -- and this is the only part that needs actual action -- periodically I take a full image backup of my main machine's drive and archive it.
Setup Effort: Moderate. Ongoing Effort: Moderate.
I keep my newest image and my last TM drive in someone else's house, too, but that MAY be paranoia.