luckyBackup

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net

Available as/for: -

Description:

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... a powerful, fast and reliable backup & sync tool

Home page: http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/

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gallery

screenshots: http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
demo videos: http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/videos.html

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news - announcements

* 16 Mar 2014
Release of version 0.4.8

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awards - distinctions

* 03 August 2009
3rd place at the sourceforge community choice awards as a "best new project"

* 2008 - 2010
Highest rated application at kde-apps.org (still is one of the top 5 !!)

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features

* Backup data
* Support for multiple backup snapshots
* Synchronize folders
* Keep your data safe
* Simple / advanced option
* Exclude data from tasks
* Only include specific data
* Add/remove any rsync option
* Remote connections
* Execute other commands before or after a task
* Restore capability to any path
* Simulation mode
* Inlude only specific tasks and change the execution order
* Use of saved profiles (also import/export capability)
* Scheduling of tasks via cron
* email reports after a profile run
* logfiles
* Command line mode
* Tray notification support

for a detailed list of features please visit:
http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/features.html

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Donations

* no money
If you like this app and would like to donate something to me personally,
all you have to do is:
- Vote "good" here
- Become a fan
- Give a "thumbs up" at the sourceforge page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/luckybackup/reviews/)

This is my reward :)

* money
I personally never had and never will accept money for this project.
Nevertheless, I decided to use luckyBackup to support people that really need financial help.
So, please consider it seriously to donate money that will eventually be used for a good cause.
Donation link: http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/donate.html

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Wish you good, fast, reliable, safe and usable backups
(no matter if you use luckyBackup or not)

luckyb
:-)

Last changelog:

7 years ago

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Version 0.4.8 :
* Added option to disable TLS for email reports
* Added some (useful) statistics at the end of a profile run
* Added destination disk free space at information window
* Minor modifications to "modify task" dialog
* View of remote places is now available through the "manage backup" dialog
* Default email options are now loaded when a new profile is created
* Split of full email command to command & arguments
* Changed the default exclude "system folders" from "/dev /proc /sys /var" to "/dev /proc /sys /run /var/run"
* Safety checks of mount-points now include deeper levels in paths than /media// and /mnt//
* Added support for vss implementation (windows)
* Added support for nt-streams (windows)
* Added support for e-mail notifications (windows)
* Added various libs used for the windows port
* Fixed issue: When one or more items were manually removed from an existing schedule list, LB would delete entries from the bottom of the list instead, when the cronIT button is pressed.
* Fixed issue: Progress bar did not update normally
* Fixed issue: Segmentation fault under certain circumstances, when --skip-critical is used as an argument and there exists one or more actual CRITICAL tasks.
* Fixed issue: Confusion at task list when an item's box state changed.
* Fixed issue (windows): Warning message regarding the changes.log files during a run

for the complete changelog, please visit:
http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/changelog.html

244 comments

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Comments/Ratings

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barjac
11 years ago

I just noticed changelog and it shows that this was fixed in 0.31 however I am using 0.32
Quote from About:-
luckyBackup 0.32 (using Qt4)

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luckyb
11 years ago

oops !!
will have that fixed at the next version
thanks barjak
:-)

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dovidhalevi
11 years ago

Fantastic app.

I mounted a remote ftp using curlftpfs and ran a session.

It goes through the motions at too-great a speed. Nothing is actually written (I did not ask for simulation!

I get a lot of
rsync chgrp operation not permitted(1) errors

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luckyb
11 years ago

the chgrp error is usually a result of a task trying to transfer group attributes at a file system that does not support it (eg FAT32)

You can normaly make it go away by unchecking the "Preserve owneship, times" chackbox at task properties -> advanced -> command options -> Templates
If you want timestamps to remain the same at the destination add a "-t" option at the user defined field (command options again).

I hope this will work, cause at the time being, I have no clue why nothing is transfered over !!

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dovidhalevi
11 years ago

I now have no rsync errors.

When I have a useable connection to the remote, the backup procedes, but simply too quickly. Nothing is actually uploaded. As if I had specified simulation but I did not!

Get the pieces to the whole file and the decending numbers ###/totalfiles and such.

Very little network activity at all--just for directory information from the remote, I suppose.

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luckyb
11 years ago

I have never answered like that before but
...I really don't have a clue what's going on :(

I am familiar with rsync up to a point, but now I really cannot think of what might be to blame.

My only advice is to run the command directly at a terminal (if you push the "validate" button it will show at a popup window. Copy that at a console prompt) to make sure that we've got the same behaviour.
...and then ask some rsync experts

sorry for not being able to provide a real solution

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dovidhalevi
11 years ago

I took the rsync command, tried EVERYTHING. Nothing gets transmitted. The remote site does not support this protocol (I am after them to implement it) so maybe it simply cannot work. I have seen numerous postings about mounting ftp sites and using rsync, however.

I might prefer to see some sort of error message if the transmission is not REAL but rsync goes merrily on its way.

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luckyb
11 years ago

Well, I suppose there's nothing else for me to say than to...
wish you luck :)

Let me know if you figure out a solution. I'm really interested in this

...and you 're right.
rsync should produce errors, since something is obviously going wrong

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BorgQueen
11 years ago

Hi Luckyb

Thanks for the app, great work.
Congrats on the nomination!

The Borg Collective!

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paai
11 years ago

I have luckybackup in regular use now, and I am very happy with it. Eucharisto poli;
Another thing that would improve things from my viewpoint are profiles that can be edited with emacs or vi, so I can copy complete profiles, search and replace a few parameters and have them ready for use.

Paai

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luckyb
11 years ago

I'm glad LB worked for you :-)

As for the profiles, yes I could do that. I'm just thinking about the transition (older profiles won't be compatible with new editable ones). Will think of something...

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paai
11 years ago

Hi,
looks good so far, but before I can test it I need the following information.

I have my backups on the remote host in a directory with the same name as on localhost. Luckybackup does nat accept that: still I need that feature.
What to do?

Paai

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luckyb
11 years ago

Hi Paai,

looks like you found a bug here.
luckybackup does not let you use the same source and destination directories for obvious reasons, but that should not happen if one of them is at a remote machine !!

Will have that fixed at the next version :)

What you could do now is:
Let's say your source is /home/paai/docs (same as the destination at the remote machine)
Declare a task with the following:
* Type: Backup the entire Source directory (by name)
* Source: /home/paai/docs
* Destination: /home/paai/
* and of course the remote settings
that should work

Also have in mind, that when you connect to a remote machine with a specific username, the starting / at the path you declare might not be the actual machine's /

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paai
11 years ago

That should work for the backup of a complete directory, but would it work for syncing? Anyway: for the moment I worked around it by adding a symbolic link on the remote to the destination directory.

In any case, you seem to have found an solution for a missing feature in Linux: an easy GUI for rsync. Thank you very much. Have a beer with me when you are in Holland.

Paai

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luckyb
11 years ago

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have a beer with me when you are in Holland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Will certainly do (probably later this year) !!
As long as you're close to Groningen ;-)

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Gen2ly
11 years ago

I like that tasks selection, not foud of the setup though: only allows one source directory and you can't use the source directory for the dest dir.

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luckyb
11 years ago

Hi,
To backup many different directories into one, for example
~/music
~/photos
~/videos

into
/media/backups

You have to create one task for each directory. The type of these tasks has to be "Backup the entire source directory (by name)"
This way you will end up with a backup of music, photos and videos inside /media/backups

As far as your second question is concerned, I'm not sure I fully understood it.
My only comment is that the destination directory cannot be part of the source directory structure.
For example you cannot backup
~/music/Cure
inside ~/music/Cure
or even ~/music/Cure/discography
for obvious reasons (the latter is included in the first one).

Please try to be more clear, or provide specific information of what exactly would you like to do, so that I can offer you the right advice

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Gen2ly
11 years ago

Thanks for the detailed response.

Ok, so luckybackup is a task-centric backup program. One day if you have to backup your music, another day your pictures... Yeah it do well for that. I'm doing a system backup and have a dozen files in /etc in need to backup and a dozen more in var, like to be able to pick files in my home directory... so this would take alot of work, probably better off with tar at the moment. Yeah for generic tasks though I could see how luckybackup be useful.

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luckyb
11 years ago

* I would actually call LB profile-centric and not task-centric.
That is because all tasks included by a profile are executed one after another with the click of the start button.

* You can even schedule a profile (that includes many tasks) to be executed via cron.

* System backups work great (at least to me). I even managed to transfer my whole / directory at another partition !!

* One of LBs options is the "Only Include". That means that you choose a source directory and then declare files, directories patterns that are going to be transfered. Nothing more will be copied over, but only these

* tar is great ...but different.
If you think it suits you best, use that.
Just don't forget to backup ;-)

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barjac
11 years ago

Hi Luckyb - thanks for a really good program - I just installed it in Mandriva Linux 2009.1 and ran my first backup with it a few minutes ago.
Just a couple of snags I found.
1. The Abort NOW button does not abort immediately - it eventually does after clicking many times over maybe 10 seconds. (This was in simulation mode)
2. The file system browser in "Task Properties->Exclude Tab->User Defined->Browse locally" can not be used to select a directory and have it entered in the text box automatically. It has to be typed in. Also there is no warning that the full path will not work here - it took a few test runs to find that only the directory name is needed.
I look forward to seeing how you implement deleted file synchronisation, as having deleted files keep returning can be a real problem when sync'ing two machines.
A program (grbakpro) that I used in Windows worked well in this respect. By placing a specially named file in a folder, deletions in that folder were not sync'ed, otherwise all deletions were echoed on the other machine.
Just a thought.
Cheers, Barry

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luckyb
11 years ago

Hi Barry,

to begin with
...thank you for the nice words :-)

1. That's strange. My abort button works instantly (and it should). I have just checked it again both at simulation and real run.
Will do some more tests with different kind of files (small, large and huge ones) to see how does it behave...

2. Yes, I have heard a lot of complains about patterns and the browse button. I'm planing to create a nice fancy "pattern editor" that will help all users create a pattern without having to read a couple of help pages and run 4-5 tests to see if it's actually working.

3. As for the deleted files sync, that is a real dilema.
The easy options (that are available now) are:
a. If files exist at one side but not at the other, delete them.
b. If files exist at one side, create them at the other one.
The ideal (and actually real sync) situation of course is to compare "times of deletion" with "times of last modification" and it is not possible to calculate the first one.
Your suggestion could work but it needs:
a. LB to run as a deamon (that, I want to avoid)
b. LB to be installed at every machine that a sync directory would be modified (that can get really complicated if we're talking about a flash drive)

My thinking is to ask the user in real-time whenever syncing is executed:
"This file exists at dirA but not dirB. Would you like to:
a. keep it at both dirs
b. remove it from both dirs
c. just keep it at dirA"
...we'll see :-)

Barry, I appreciate your feedback A LOT.
Thanks to commends like this, LB has made a huge improvement since the time it was first released about 7 months ago. There's also a pleasant and honouring nomination coming from sourceforge.net in a couple of weeks.
:-)

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barjac
11 years ago

Thanks for your prompt reply.
The delay in abort must have been when I had three very large mount points in the task (which I was trying to exclude). Re-testing now with just one of them included, the maximum delay is around two seconds - so not a problem.
Regarding the syncing of deletions.
If the backup has been created by a machine with LB then the special trigger file (e.g. @@LBdel) would be copied over to the backup. Any other machine using the backup to sync from (restore) would see the file and know not to delete files in the corresponding destination folder. From that point the trigger file would be on both machines and synced like any other. The trigger file need not be empty - it could contain a list of specific file patterns to exclude from deletion in that folder. I know it's not nice to add extra files to the system, but it does give great flexibility and control. I do not see why this would need a daemon or be a problem for flash etc.
Just food for thought. :-)
Barry

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luckyb
11 years ago

****Just food for thought.****

...just in time for dinner
;-)

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ThomasS2k
11 years ago

# thanks to...
# * Wilfried Schobel - German gui translator

but there is no german language in the menu to choose

Thanks! Great Application!

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luckyb
11 years ago

Hi Thomas

Wilfried is currently working on the 0.3 translation:
http://luckybackup.sourceforge.net/languages.html

He has made some progress but I do not know when it's going to be ready.

This is all volunteer work so:
1. There are no deadlines
2. I like thanking people for commiting to do sth :)

Will contact him anyway to see how he's doin' ;-)

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