Backup entire system incase of corruption

Help and Support Help
1

Is there anyway that we can backup the system so, if anything goes wrong, I can simply restore it to the SD card and put it back how it was?

I seem to have something that works at the moment but I don’t know how long it’ll work for! I have to go through quite a few processes to set up though, including

  • update, install cifs-utils, manually mount NAS
  • use crontab and script to automatically refresh tagged BBC radio streams
  • crontab to reboot and restart mpd at 6 am

This takes quite a while. Can I take a ‘snapshot’ of the system when everything is working that I can restore if I need to?

2

Hi,
on linux OS on your pc you can take dd in terminal:

dd if=/dev/sdX of=volumio_current_date.img

/dev/sdx is your SD card - you can find it with “dmesg” after plug in the card in the running OS or with “df -h”.

On some OS or hardware /dev/sdX could be /dev/mmcblk0

Tobbes

3

Thanks. So I can just do this from a Linux computer connected to the same network?

4

Oh sorry for bad explaination …

You must plug in the SD card (took from PPi) in the Linux PC directly.

I do not know a network solution.

edit: For windows you can take W32 Disk Imager.
See here :

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-clone-your-raspberry-pi-sd-card-for-super-easy-r-1261113524

Tobbes

5

Ah ok, makes more sense. I was hoping for a network solution since I’m terrified of doing anything that might break it! I’ll do that though, thanks.

6

Some refs to auto backup a RPi to a network/usb drive etc:

using dd:

stuffaboutcode.com/2012/08/r … ckups.html
raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt … p?p=136912
raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt … p?p=136912

using various utils:

raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/qu … spberry-pi

using rsync:

raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/qu … spberry-pi

Happy reading …

7

Perfect, exactly what I need. Thanks.

8

Any suggestion for Mac users?

9

Apple OS X has “dd” command available as well. Open up Terminal and type “dd” - should show some help.

10

Or, if you want a less “nerdy” solution, try Apple Pi Baker.
http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/raspberry-pi/macosx-apple-pi-baker/