People think they need backups while in fact they need restores… - HN / HN

Backup on Linux

• For personal file backups: use Pika (based on Borg)
• For system restore points: use Timeshift.

Pika Backup

Pika Backup a relatively new but popular desktop-oriented backup tool for Linux, Built on BorgBackup → so you get all the benefits of Borg (deduplication, compression, encryption, incremental backups).

• We finally have a simple solution for backing up files on Linux

Features

• Backup is browsable - they are mounted in the filesystem
  • files can be restored individually easily

Configuration

• installed borg tools on NAS -> this was a mistake
  • need to have ssh access anyway => redirect to borg user
  • pika/borg is picky on .ssh/* ownership and won’t run if unsecure
  • add user key, to be able to operate as borg user on remote

Borg tools only require ssh access (so it’s not clear why it could be usefull to add it on the server). It boils down:

• create a borg user -> this is strictly unecessary
  • restrict its access -> no interactive shell
  • connect through ssh public key
  • own the backup folder -> the regular user could own it - since it’s bettere to have multi user, separate repository

TimeShift

Timeshift for Linux is an application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. Timeshift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored at a later date to undo all changes to the system.