{"id":26252,"date":"2016-07-18T09:42:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T07:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=26252"},"modified":"2016-07-18T09:42:53","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T07:42:53","slug":"test-your-backups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/07\/18\/test-your-backups\/","title":{"rendered":"Test your backups!"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>You can read all the books in the world and know all there is to know, but if you don&#8217;t follow the wisdom and practice the knowledge, then it&#8217;s all useless. \u00a0That&#8217;s my lesson from yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taobackup.com\/\">Tao of Backup<\/a>, which I <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/19\/tao-of-backup\/\">linked to before<\/a>, says:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/backup-testing.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"26253\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/07\/18\/test-your-backups\/backup-testing\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/backup-testing.png?fit=500%2C366&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"500,366\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"backup testing\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/backup-testing.png?fit=500%2C366&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26253\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/backup-testing-500x366.png?resize=500%2C366&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"backup testing\" width=\"500\" height=\"366\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, what happened? \u00a0Well, as I was preparing for the <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/07\/18\/fedora-24-the-day-of-64-bit-has-come\/\">Fedora 24 installation<\/a>, I wanted to backup some of my files, as the partition would be formatted. \u00a0I&#8217;ve connected an external USB drive with plenty of space and ZIP-archived a few of the vital directories on to it.<\/p>\n<p>That was a very simple backup procedure and I saw the resulting files on the volume. \u00a0What else should I do, right? \u00a0Wrong! \u00a0I should have tested the restore. \u00a0I didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the directories that I backed up were small &#8211; <em>\/etc<\/em>, <em>\/opt<\/em>, <em>\/root<\/em>. \u00a0But my <em>\/home<\/em> directory was about 20 GBs. \u00a0The external USB disk used the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32\">FAT-32 file system<\/a>, which has a 4 GB file size limit. \u00a0So only the first 4 GBs of my <em>\/home<\/em> folder were backed up. \u00a0Funny enough, those files were mostly browser cache and image thumbnails &#8211; stuff that should be ignored from backups. \u00a0The main two folders that I wanted &#8211; Desktop and .ssh were not part of the backup. \u00a0And I only realized that after the partition has been formatted.<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah, I should have tested the backup.<\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong>: Gladly, I do have backups elsewhere, and most of my work is committed to GitHub\/BitBucket anyways.<\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>You can read all the books in the world and know all there is to know, but if you don&#8217;t follow the wisdom and practice the knowledge, then it&#8217;s all useless. \u00a0That&#8217;s my lesson from yesterday. The Tao of Backup, which I linked to before, says: So, what happened? \u00a0Well, as I was preparing for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/07\/18\/test-your-backups\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Test your backups!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Test your backups! #backup #SysAdmin","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,6,133,62],"tags":[251],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-26252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-linux","category-sysadmin","category-technology","tag-backup"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25126,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/19\/tao-of-backup\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":0},"title":"Tao of Backup","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tao of Backup is yet another way to tell people to backup their files. \u00a0Not only it explains why it is important, but also how to do it properly. \u00a0My favorite chapter is on testing: The novice asked the backup master: \"Master, now that my backups have good coverage, are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tao","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/tao-500x318.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18677,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/15\/helium-app-sync-and-backup-for-android\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":1},"title":"Helium &#8211; App Sync and Backup for Android","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 15, 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"Helium - App Sync and Backup for Android","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22246,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/22\/backup-black-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":2},"title":"Backup black hole","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I just had to look for something that got deleted in one of the systems I administrate. \u00a0We have daily backups for the last week, weekly backups for the last two month, monthly backups for the last year, and yearly backups for ever. \u00a0That seemed like a sensible backup plan.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22912,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/18\/bup-very-efficient-backup-system-based-on-the-git-packfile-format\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":3},"title":"bup &#8211; very efficient backup system based on the git packfile format","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 18, 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"bup - very efficient backup system based on the git packfile format","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8470,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/01\/13\/how-to-backup-social-bookmarks-delicious-gets-foxy\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":4},"title":"How To Backup Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Gets Foxy","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This article expains nicely what are the benefits of social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us. It also tells how to get rid of the worries many people have regarding them - availability and backup.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18067,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/04\/25\/rss-ifttt-evernote-backup\/","url_meta":{"origin":26252,"position":5},"title":"RSS + IFTTT + Evernote = Backup","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is just a test. \u00a0 I've created a new personal recipe using IFTTT service, which will pull the RSS feed of this blog, and create a new note in a specific notebook of my Evernote account. \u00a0This is not recommended as a backup solution of course (you should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26252"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=26252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}