Mondo Backup

GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams

Mondo Backup

Debian Packages: mondo mondo-doc

Mondo can be used to backup to DVD. We illustrate a recipe here.

First test things out with:

  # mondoarchive -OVr -d /dev/dvd -9 -I /etc -gF

This will generate a bootable DVD that also backs up /etc. You can boot from this DVD and then recover files. Alternatively, and more typically, you can recover files running mondorestore. This starts up a basic interface to select files to be recovered.

All of the operation of mondoarchive is controlled by command line options. The -O option says to do a backup, and the -V says to verify the backup. The -r option indicates that a DVD is to be used as the backup media, with /dev/dvd as the device specified with the -d option. The -9 requests the highest level of compression, -g requests the GUI mode, and -F removes a unnecessary request to write a boot floppy.

We can now backup our whole /home and /etc directories. You can specify what to backup on the command line:

  # mondoarchive -OVr -d /dev/dvd -9 -I "/etc /home" -gF

And you can refine this by specifying those directories you do not want backed up:

  # mondoarchive -OVr -d /dev/dvd -9 -I "/etc /home" \
    -E "/home/share /home/kayon/mp3" -gF

Note that the backups will start to take some time - likely to be several hours depending on how much is to be backed up.

One strategy might be to create several backups, each of a specific area of about the size that will fit onto the DVD (compressed). Then cycle through these backup regions, always keeping two backups (the current and the previous).

Subsections

Troubleshooting

wirehaze public archive

Mondo Backup