1

I was sent over here by the super user guys, because my question is better suited here.

I have that policy that I leave no data unencrypted, so I am looking for a program or suite of scripts that lets me backup directly into an encrypted container. To be useful it should do the following:

  • Automated backup to a local or/and remote encrypted target storage
  • Incremental backup
  • Automated mounting/unmounting of said storage or provide hooks to insert instructions to do so
  • Automatic rotation, so I can store monthly backups of site
  • Run on linux and has to be maintained
  • Prompt the user to attach the storage device if it is missing
  • Must not dependent on a service provider

Bonus points if:

  • it has a GUI for status information and simple operation like postpone/pause
  • it integrates with PAM/keyrings so the user does not need to provide the password every time the backup starts
  • it is open source or open source friendly

I started to hack something together myself but then this feeling crept up on me that I am reinventing the wheel and I am just too stupid to find the proper solution. Does anyone have a recommendation?

What I already looked at:

  • fwbackup -> no encryption
  • simple backup solution -> no encryption
  • bacula -> has encryption but way too complicated for only 5 machines

Thank you for all the tips

Improve this question
2

i'm not 100% sure if it hits all your requirement but Déjà Dup is definitively worth a look:

  • it uses duplicity/rsync as backend
  • use local, external or network-storage (ssh, ftp, WebDAV, smb, etc.)
  • scheduled backups (more flexible settings via dconf/gsettings)
  • optional encryption via symmetric gpg and integrates with keyring
  • notifies via libnotify when a backup is pending but target is missing
  • it works unattached but integrates with several DE-panels for information, status, pause, stop/skip, etc.

deja-dup is for sure open source and therefor in most major distributions repositories.

Improve this answer
  • uuuh that looks tasty :-) I'll check that out. I let you know. – paradoxon Aug 4 '16 at 18:26
  • Just checked it out. I like the GUI interface, it is simple enough so a user can pause it when it is causing inconvenience. I also looked up duplicity. I still need to figure out scheduling because the GUI options are rather limited in this regard. But I am confident that I can work this out. In the worst case i need a crone job that does the monthly rotation. Thank you very much for this, it might save me a whole world of trouble. I also like that is GTK3 and it is in the fedora main repo :-) – paradoxon Aug 4 '16 at 19:46
  • @paradoxon: as said, have a look with the dconf-editor at the schema org.gnome.DejaDup for more settings, or use gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.DejaDup in the terminal for a first impression. – DJCrashdummy Aug 5 '16 at 9:43
  • @paradoxon: by the way... what do you want to achieve with "monthly rotation"? - keep in mind the backups are incremental; so you need all the files for restoring! – DJCrashdummy Aug 5 '16 at 9:54
  • Thx for the extra hints :-) I think I am good from here. I borrowed the term from log management. Where you stop writing to a file, rename and compress it and start a new one. I'd like to do do a similar thing with my backups. This way I only have the current month on site can bring the rest to a safe location of site. – paradoxon Aug 5 '16 at 10:47

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.