Restore to new user?

Re: Issues · bit-team/backintime

I’m finally about to update my OS, but I’d planned to use a different (shorter) username & hostname — what will I need to do to restore my files and BiT profiles? I know I can manually copy (or rsync) them from the backup folders, but would like to restore through BiT if possible. I’m backing up my dotfiles, so I will have a copy of ~/.config/backintime/config.

I’m using Back In Time 1.0.7 on LXLE 12.04 (based on Lubuntu 12.04), and moving to whatever version of Back In Time is on LXLE / Lubuntu 14.04. The update isn’t an in-place upgrade; I have to do a fresh installation. Also, some of my profiles backup (and all of them backup to) external hard drives.

(I don’t see how to add a label, but obviously this is a question).

[Discuss at GitHub]

Comments (7)
  1. As long as you use BIT version > 1.1.0 it will restore the config automatically on first start on the new machine. Also different host/usernames doesn’t matter anymore (the old Auto Host/User/ProfileID option is gone).

    You should fsck your backup drive and make sure your backup is healthy by making one last snapshot with backintime --checksum --backup. This will take ages but after that you know all files are really the same as original files (could happen that a filesystem error broke a file which wasn’t detected by rsyncs normal method)

    I’d suggest to also backup /etc as root if you configured something special in there. And create a backup of your installed packages. Take a look on our FAQ How to backup Debian/Ubuntu Package selection and the according restore process

    via GitHub

  2. Thank you! Does backintime --backup run all profiles that are setup? I checked the man page but didn’t see any mention. I know I can temporarily change my profiles in the GUI to use checksum, anyway.

    I’ve never run fsck manually before, and my first look at the man page and a web search made me more nervous instead of less… I will do the other steps, and make another copy of my files, and hopefully I won’t take the impatient route of skipping the fsck.

  3. No, backintime --backup will only run the first profile. Use backintime --profile-id 2 --backup for the second.

    Don’t fear the shell ;-) Just use gparded. Select your partition, go to Partition > Check and run the check with Edit > Apply All Operations.

    via GitHub

  4. Ah, gparted I’ve used before (though not for that). Thanks again!

    I’m a lot more comfortable with the shell than I used to be — but there’s a lot I don’t know and sometimes it’s easier (and safer) to back away than to climb the learning curve :)

  5. I ended up using the GUI to check the backups because one of the first outputs I got in the shell was Ignore option: --checksum. After a confused upgrade, I ended up not needing to restore the files, just the profiles. I had to use the PPA because the version in the repo was older than 1.1.0. I also had to update the snapshot locations for every profile because my system now mounts external drives under /media/[username] instead of just /media.

    The only question I have now is: do I need to change the info under Settings > General > Advanced for the profiles? Currently they show my old host and user. The ext4 drives are owned by my current user now, if that matters.

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