What is the correct way to not be using the home directory during a backup of it?

Tachytaenius

4/1/24, 10:16 AM

So I obviously shouldn't just run rsync backing up /home while I'm plainly logged in, as the state of settings files could be inconsistent or whatever else, since /home is being used.

One solution is to enable signing in as root on the login screen and going from there as root, but I've heard that is ill-advised.

What's the right way to not be using /home during a backup of it?

1 + 5

backup

rsync

home-directory

David

4/1/24, 10:23 AM

If you are only running rsysnc after a reboot and just logged in I do not see how you would have critical open files.

Jos

4/1/24, 10:41 AM

What @David says, "critical" being the important word here. You'll see that if you do two `rsync` operations, one after the other, while logged in, the second one will only backup cache files and other transient data.

PonJar

4/1/24, 11:48 AM

I use rsync to backup my home directory. It is run daily by cron and has never had an issue. I have never seen questions about an issue like the one you are concerned about. I guess if you are making changes to a file while rsync is running it may capture the change or it may not, depending on whether that file is processed. Alternatively it’s possible rsync re-syncs the file at the end of the job but I doubt it does that. Bottom line it’s probably irrelevant.

Jos

4/1/24, 11:57 AM

@PonJar As far as I know `rsync` does not retry to sync a changed file at the end of the job. It lists the files to be copied at the start of the job. If a file is modified while `rsync` runs before it is its turn to be transferred, the modified state will be copied. Files created since the start of the run will be silently omitted. Only when a file was deleted, `rsync` will complain (a bit). This is how I understand it; I may be wrong.

Marco

4/1/24, 12:07 PM

Put your home on a partition/filesystem which can handle snapshots, e.g. lvm, btrfs.

Score:2

Ubuntu

vanadium

4/1/24, 1:02 PM

If you want to backup your home directory while it is not in use, then perform the backup from within a different account on that computer or from a live session. For practical purposes, though, you should not worry. Still, prefer to do the backup when all programs are closed, i.e. before or after work.

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