backup
If I want to make a backup of my entire OS (including but not just my home directory), how do I go about this?
Is it as simple as backing up everything in / and then when if I suffer a crash, just copying the files back over?
Will this cover grub, and how do I actually do this when the system is inoperable?
As it turns out, the .Private filesystem is ecryptfs, which contains a separate encrypted file for each item.
My solution is to backup the contents of ~/.Private (even though it is mounted at the time). The backup process should handle any changes in that folder gracefully since they are individual files.
OK, so you have configured DejaDup correctly, because you were able to restore the other folders.
If that is the case, I have probably bad news to you. The default configuration of Deja Dup explicitly excludes the folders Trash and Downloads, as you can see on the following picture:
Best Answer
FILES
Refer to this howto: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087
In simple terms, the backup command is:
sudo tar czf /backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz --exclude=/dev --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/proc --exclude=/sys --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/lost+found /. Add more--exclude=parameters if you need to.It will create an archive of all your files at
/backup.tar.gz, which you can then copy over to another computer/drive and restore your files if the install goes pear-shaped. You can do it from a LiveCD, by mounting the "bad" system under/mediaor/mntand runningtar xf /path/to/drive/with/backup.tar.gz -C /mnt(substitute for the actual path to the "bad" system).GRUB
This will not cover GRUB, however you can easily reinstall it by following this guide here. You only need to do steps Three and Four.