Borg backup. You should be able to install it on your Live session, then restore to the target mount point.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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And use Vorta if you want a gui for Borg backup.
Pika Backup is another user-friendly Borgbackup GUI.
https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/app/org.gnome.World.PikaBackup/
Pika Backup is the most user-friendly GUI for Borg. Vorta UI is powerful but complex. Pika only shows you the absolute basics: where to keep the backups, what to include, what to exclude, list of snapshots, and schedule options.
Vorta looks very powerful. I know all that functionality is in Borg, but it's tricky to do it right. I'll give Vorta a try on my next install.
BorgBackup is the answer. Stopped creating stupid shell scripts with rsync and whatever and thinking I was so clever.
Timeshift. Easy to set up. Easy to use, only takes a couple of minutes to 're-set' your system back, if you break it. If you want just to backup files, documents etc then Cron. I use both. They are standard Linux programs and easy to use
Restic is my favorite, but you really would need to be familiar with the terminal, cron tasks, etc. to consider it a viable option.
Have you looked to see if rdiff-backup is included? It works off of rsync but provides incremental backups and restores. On my servers I set up a script that excludes system folders like /dev, network mounts, and the log files, but it grabs pretty much everything else. Once the script works just set up a cron job and forget about it.
I wrote a Bash script that uses rsync to copy data elsewhere.
It gets launched by a systemd timer, but cron would also work. At first it creates a btrfs snapshot of source, for consistency's sake.
Then it copies stuff. It's incremental, ie. unchanged files get hardlinked, not copied (-link-dest against the latest symlink) into date-specific directories that present the full view of the filesystem.
Finally, it cleans up the source snapshot and rewrites the latest symlink to point to the freshly made copy, if successful.
I could share my script, if there's interest, tho it might look a bit messy. Oh, and these rdiff-whatchamacallits probably do the same thing in a more professional manner. I wrote mine to learn rsync.
Sounds like a well thought out solution, but we need proper programs which can handle backups, like some mentioned in this thread.
Oh, I totally agree my solution is not "proper" - it's a homebrewn solution, full of duct tape and shoestrings. That said, it does everything I need to do. Which features of "proper programs" would you be missing? Perhaps I could add them for my own use.
Its not about features, its about "duct tape scripts" are rarely a solution for anybody else than the author, imo. Borgbackup seems like the proper suggestion here for the OP.
I don’t want to use another ISO due to space constraints on my USB.
What? A 32GB thumb drive is under $10...
Timeshift for system files, Backintime for user data.
I tried Backintime and Timeshift recently.
In Backintime I added the dirs I wanted to backup and where to make the backups, pressed "run" and it said there's nothing to do. Uninstalled. Later on I found out it had added stuff to my crontab even though I never asked it for a recurring schedule.
Timeshift started by asking for the root password right off the bat. Uninstalled. Like, I know it will want root access eventually but at least buy me dinner first. How do I know what a program I've never used before wants to do to my system?
Neither of those are backup tools. They're snapshotting tools.
Snapshots are incremental backups.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Synchronization_and_backup_programs#Incremental_backups
They are often incremental but they're still not a backup.
They are local restore points. That's better than nothing at all as a local copy can protect against a very limited kind of data hazard and quite handy indeed but not a backup. A backup is always an independent copy.
If your entire machine was to blow up, a backup must be able to retain your data. A copy on the same disks will not.
Now I get your point, sorry. You can use both Timeshift and BackInTime as snapshot tools, but also configure them to create snapshots on a different drive, making it an actual backup.
I for example use Timeshift in Rsync mode for that reason even though I'm also using Btrfs, which Timeshift supports, but only for non-backup snapshots.
Sorry for the confusion, I guess when suggesting both those tools one always has to specify that you need to save snapshots on a secondary drive for it to be a backup.
Not a recommendation per se, but you can use any backup software as long as you can edit your live iso. For example puting the restic binary into /opt
Idk about Endeavour but I use Duplicity and don't currently regret it.
I use backintime and have for a number of years. It is incremental with unchanged files being hard-linked and makes it easy to restore files if needed.
I use Kopia, and I’ve successfully restored multiple backups with it.
I'd imagine tar is included with the install media.
Testdisk 😹 jk don't be like me
Are you already using something like ventoy, or do you refrain from using another usb stick?
I hate being that guy that says "why are you doing that" instead of providing solutions, but since you already have Nswers, I am just too curious.
Arch does not seem like the kind of distro to run from a live state (or a static state of the install media). Talk about an OS that really works best with updating.
So, what am I missing here?