Local Backup

A simple and secure backup solution is an external hard drive connected directly to your server.  We never know when a hard drive will fail or a software update will cause conflicts, so it's best to always have a safety net.  

Timeshift is an application that runs on our server and creates incremental backups on a local hard drive.  These can be created on a schedule with old backups being automatically deleted to free up space as needed.

In the event of a systems failure, we can use the command line version of Timeshift to restore our system from the latest backup.

We can install Timeshift using the terminal:

sudo apt-get install -y timeshift

Once installed, we can open it with:

sudo timeshift-gtk

The first time we open Timeshift, it'll start a configuration wizard.  We will be asked what mode we want to use for our backups and we will select 'rsync'.

Timeshift will begin to estimate the backup size by scanning our systems files. 

Once it's completed, we'll be asked to decide where we will be storing our backups.  We can select the Storage drive that we mounted earlier.

Next, we'll have choose our snapshot level.  This allows us to customize how often we want our backups to run.  Weekly backups are a great starting point, but running them nightly can help you get back up and running faster.

Timeshift will ask if you want to backup the home directories for root and your account.  We should choose to enable both.

Now that we have finished setup, we can create our first backup by hitting the 'create' button.  A window will appear to show us the current progress.

Once the backup is completed, you're safe in yhe event of a backup.  Timeshift will automatically backup your computer on the schedule we selected