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Is there a TimeMachine like backup system for Ubuntu? If not, what is the closest thing?

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7 Answers

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I've used rsnapshot to excellent effect. You can have it rsync and keep as many old versions, based on time as you want/have space for. I've got 6 potential versions of things from today, daily for a week, 4 weeks, and then 6 months worth. I've already used it to recover several file I thought I'd lost due to overwriting.

The only problems I have had was it not running due to the previous run not completing in time, and so it left the lockfile dangling. This was on a remote machine that did password-less logins over SSH to rsync files off for backup/archive and I didn't log in very often to the server to check it. Running a logwatch script on there (emailing problems from the logs) at least made sure I saw the problems to restart it, and it's been hassle free ever since. On my local server, it's been no problem at all.

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Ah nice. From that page: "Using rsync and hard links, it is possible to keep multiple, full backups instantly available. The disk space required is just a little more than the space of one full backup, plus incrementals." You've used it for a while and found it stable then? – quark Jul 31 '09 at 7:00
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up vote 4 down vote

You may want to try Back In Time

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You may want to point out that Back in Time is directly inspired by Time Machine, and uses rsync internally. lifehacker.com/5212899/… – nagul Sep 23 '09 at 11:22
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up vote 3 down vote

Déjà Dup (day-ja-doop) is a simple backup program. It hides the complexity of doing backups the Right Way (encrypted, off-site, and regular) and uses duplicity as the backend.

Features:

  • Support for local or remote backup locations, including Amazon S3
  • Securely encrypts and compresses your data
  • Incrementally backs up, letting you restore from any particular backup
  • Schedules regular backups
  • Integrates well into your GNOME desktop
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I've used this successfully for almost a year now, and backup has never been this painless. – Wolfram Arnold Jan 17 at 23:54
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up vote 2 down vote

TimeVault was specifically designed to emulate TimeMachine. The theoretical feature set is what I want from a TimeMachine clone, specifically the space savings. Unfortunately it appears to be dormant: there's been little development activity in a while. I mention it for completeness, and because, if they can be prodded to work on it further, it looks quite promising.

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up vote 2 down vote

When using rsync, see Time Machine for every Unix out there for a tutorial.

(That site also mentions FlyBack, which still gets comments though the latest download dates from late 2007. Maybe it's just very robust software, with no need for changes.)

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up vote 0 down vote

I am not aware of TimeBachine directly but we use RSync with a scheduled cron job.

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RSync is a good way to create a backup copy, but it doesn't help you keep a version history, which is, in my opinion, the handiest part of Time Machine. – jtb Jul 28 '09 at 22:24
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@jtb, just to point out the obvious: Time Machine is mainly a backup system, not an archive (and certainly not a version control system). Especially files (or versions of files) that live shortly (less than a week) on your harddisk, may be expired from the backup much sooner than you may think. – Arjan Jul 29 '09 at 7:49
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up vote 0 down vote

I for one am using Simple Backup Config/Restore, and backup the selected locations to an external hard-drive once every other day or so. Didn't have a problem as of yet, so I can't vouch for the restore part, but the backup one is OK.

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