GRSync Backup

After the last firmware upgrade for my N800 I have really started using it a lot more and as such needed to think about more routine backups than I have been. My other computers all backup over the network to a Buffalo LinkStation using rsync so as the N800 is linux based this seemed like the ideal solution.

The initial installation of rsnyc and openssh from maemo.org was trivial and every thing was ready to go within minutes. In my searches for rsync I also stumbled upon grsync. Grsync is a simple front end to rsync which seems to integrate nicely to the hildon interface and will make it much easier to keep up with regular backups than relying on me to open xterm and run a script.

In order to get the best out of grsync I used ssh-keygen to generate some ssh keys on my N800 and appended the id_rsa.pub to the authorized_keys file on the LinkStation. Once this was all done and I had connected to the LinkStation once from the N800 to sort out the known_hosts file I was ready to go.

Setting up the grsync was trivial as I already knew what rsync options I needed and the appropriate syntax for the remote side of the sync pair.

In operation grsync gives you very informative progress indicators and the actual output of the rsync command in a little window so you can check what has actually been done.

I only backup the /home/user directory from the internal memory as this is where I tend to put anything I actually create on the N800 (the SD cards are full of books and mp3s which have come from the laptop anyway) , the whole process only takes at most five minutes and with GRSync it’s now very simple to keep to a nearly regular backup routine.
Foonote :
The version listed appears only to be compatible with OS2007 but I am using it quite happily from OS2008. I did install it directly from the Application Manager but I couldn’t tell you which repository it came from.