How to make a complete backup of my system?

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1

Hello here!

Just returned to fedora after a long time of arch. Finally feel the need of a backup so I won’t lose all that I have customized and set through laborious work.

I am not sure what to use, but I roughly know I want something like the service they provide in vps cloud. Some sort of file made out of the system that can be applied to a fresh install with identical contents.

Thank you for looking!

2

https://fedoramagazine.org/?s=backup

3

Finally feel the need of a backup so I won’t lose all that I have customized and set through laborious work.

Hi, I would love to give my thoughts without comprehensive experiences on each and every backup tool. Some of them are alternative approaches rather than complete system backup.

  1. Backup /etc directory using rdiff-backup (CLI) or Deja-Dup (GUI)
    Deciding factor: Workstation or Server/ which cloud service
  • Workstation: The simplest/lightest way will be to backup /etc directory. This way consumes the least amount of storage and backup time. This assumes all of your post-install configurations are stored in /etc. The command-line-based app I tested and use is rdiff-backup. Deja-Dup (Called backup in software repo) is another tool I use. The back-end of Deja-Dup is duplicity or restic - you can choose in GUI settings.
  • Server: ReaR
  • Cloud service as backup destination: Which cloud services you are going to use for remote backup? The choice of cloud services affect the compatibility of backup standards.

  1. Snapshot: I haven’t tried it.

  2. Immutable OS: Silverblue or KInoite.
    I can reboot/rollback to the previous working one just like git workflow. So it is kind of achieving what I expect. /etc directory still needs to be backed up separately.

  3. Installation script: if you expect provisioning for many different devices and you wish to share the configuration with others, this will be handy. Probably it will only make sense if you have a workgroup/friends to share your configuration steps.

  4. Perform a Kickstart Installation: an alternative to the installation script. You can save the Kickstart config file in USB and run it as boot media.

4

Just the /etc might be too light for my needs.

I will have to give silverblue a look, having a restoration point is really nice.
I am backing up to local storage, not cloud, so that is not a concern.

Nor am I doing mass installations, but yeah scripts will be useful for that.

5

I noticed you tagged kde. In this case, Kinoite is yours.

6

Yes indeed I did! I will check that out as well.