Ask HN: How do you backup before an upgrade (Linux)?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • Rsnapshot

    a tool for backing up your data using rsync (if you want to get help, use https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rsnapshot-discuss)

    I can describe my method that has worked well for a few decades but it might not be for everyone.

    Before planning a backup I first ensure all the files I care about are isolated into unique directories not shared by anything I don't care about. e.g. /data/something_unique /opt/something_unique /home/username/something_unique and so on. something_unique just being a unique directory that contains anything or everything I care about. One could also define other shared directories in rsnapshot like /home/username/.config or the entire home directory if you have the disk space for it.

    I then have rsnapshot installed and it will be a local snapshot of files I consider important enough that I want a few versions of. RSnapshot is just a perl script that uses hardlinks to reduce disk space usage of duplicate files. I rsync that snapshot over to a NAS. If files are very important I will also copy them to a portable NAS and put it in my vehicle.

    [1] - https://rsnapshot.org/

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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