openHABian backup option clarity: Mirror, Raw, Sync

Hi All,

Firstly I would like to show my appreciation for everyone who is working so hard on the OH3 release, I understand that is where most of the focus is at the moment.

I also understand that this is why some of the documentation is missing key information and appreciate an update will follow in due course.

That said in the meantime I have a couple of questions surrounding how backup works in openhabian.

Process & understanding so far

  • I’ve installed the image onto an 8GB SD card and updated openhabian.conf by uncommenting the options under # external SD card device to backup and mirror the internal SD card to

  • I inserted a 32GB card into a reader and inserted that into the back of the Pi

  • I then powered on the Pi and let openhabian do its magic while keeping an eye on the log for errors

As mentioned in the documentation this has set up 1 monthly full backup, 1 sync a week and daily backups of openhab via amanda. The frequency of these backups is found here /etc/systemd/system/sd*.timer

Questions/Assumptions

I’m asking these questions as I don’t want to randomly push buttons based on my assumptions and mess things up. :grimacing:

I’ve now started to customise my setup meaning the SD card is instantly out of date.

  1. Do I use option 55 Sync SD to bring it back in line, wait for the scheduled backup mentioned above, select 54 Raw copy SD or something else?

  2. Can I 54 Raw copy SD without setting up any mirroring and do periodically?

After much more experimenting I understand now how it works and while looking for something else I found my answer! Always the case “when you are not searching the answer it is staring you in the face!”

Incase anyone else is confused like I was:

53 Setup SD monitoring - This prepares the partitions on an SD card (at least double size of original). It also sets up a monthly and weekly backup schedule

54 Raw copy SD - This is used to copy your files back onto a new SD card should your original fail.

55 Sync SD - This option re-syncs your main SD card with your external card.

You can run 55 if want to update the backup immediately rather than waiting for the mirror script to kick in.

In short the answer to my questions:

Q1: You can wait or run option 55
Q2: Yes run 54 then 55 periodically

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