Provided by: backintime-common_1.0.34-0.1_all bug

NAME

       backintime - a simple backup tool for Linux.

       This is command line tool.  The graphical tools are: backintime-gnome and backintime-kde4.

SYNOPSIS

       backintime  [  --profile  <profile  name> | --profile-id <profile id> ] [ --keep-mount ] [
       --quiet ] [ --config PATH ] [ --checksum ] [ --backup | --backup-job | --snapshots-path  |
       --snapshots-list  |  --snapshots-list-path  |  --last-snapshot  |  --last-snapshot-path  |
       --unmount | --benchmark-cipher [SIZE] |  --pw-cache  [start|stop|restart|reload|status]  |
       --decode  [PATH] | --restore [WHAT [WHERE [SNAPSHOT_ID]]] | --help | --version | --license
       ]

DESCRIPTION

       Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux. The backup is done by taking snapshots  of
       a specified set of folders.

       All you have to do is configure: where to save snapshots, what folders to backup.  You can
       also specify a backup schedule: disabled, every 5 minutes, every 10 minutes,  every  hour,
       every  day,  every  week, every month. To configure it use one of the graphical interfaces
       available (backintime-gnome or backintime-kde4).

       It acts as a 'user mode' backup tool. This means that you can backup/restore only  folders
       you have write access to (actually you can backup read-only folders, but you can't restore
       them).

       If you want to run it as root you need to use 'su'.

       A new snapshot is created only if something changed since the last snapshot (if any).

       A snapshot contains all the files from the selected folders (except for exclude patterns).
       In  order  to  reduce  disk  space  it  use hard-links (if possible) between snapshots for
       unchanged files. This way a file of 10Mb, unchanged for 10 snapshots, will use  only  10Mb
       on the disk.

       When you restore a file 'A', if it already exists on the file system it will be renamed to
       'A.backup.currentdate'.

       For automatic backup it use 'cron' so there is no need for a daemon, but  'cron'  must  be
       running.

   Modes
       Local
           Store  snapshots  on local HDD's (internal or USB). The drive has to be mounted before
           creating a new snapshot.

       Local encrypted
           Store encrypted snapshots on local HDD's (internal or USB).  Backintime  uses  'encfs'
           with  standard  configuration to encrypt all data. You have to be member of group fuse
           to use this. In terminal type 'sudo adduser <USER> fuse'. To apply changes you have to
           logout and login again.

       SSH
           With  Mode  set  to  SSH  you  can  store  the  backup  on  a  remote  host  using the
           SecureShellHost protocol (ssh).  The remote path will be mount local  using  sshfs  to
           provide  file-access  for  the  graphical interface and the backup process.  Rsync and
           other processes called during backup process will run  directly  on  the  remote  host
           using ssh.

           To  prepare your user account for ssh-mode you have to add the user to group 'fuse' by
           typing 'sudo adduser <USER> fuse' in terminal.  To apply changes you  have  to  logout
           and login again.

           Next  you  have  to  create  a  password-less  login  to  the remote host (for further
           informations  look  at  http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/152).   Type  in
           terminal 'ssh-keygen -t dsa' hit enter for default path and enter a passphrase for the
           private key.

           Finally type 'ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub <REMOTE_USER>@<HOST>'  and  enter  your
           password on remote host.

           In  Settingsdialog  you  need to set the host and remote user. If you enter a relative
           path (no leading / ) it will start from remote users homedir. The password has  to  be
           the passphrase for your private key.

           Cipher (the algorithm used to encrypt the data during transfer)
           To  optimize  performance  you  can  choose  the cipher used by ssh. Depending on your
           environment you can have a massive speed increase compared to the default cipher.

           --benchmark-cipher will give you an overview over which cipher is the fastest in  your
           environment.

           If  the  bottleneck  of your environment is the hard-drive or the network you will not
           see a big difference between the ciphers. In this case you should stay on 'default'.

           Please read security informations about the cipher  before  using  them  in  untrusted
           networks  (Wifi, Internet). Some of them (Arcfour, 3DES, ...) should be handled as not
           secure anymore.

           Remote Host
           If your remote host is an  embedded  Linux  NAS  or  any  other  device  with  limited
           functions,  you  could  run  into  some problems caused by feature-less commands.  For
           example some devices may not have hardlink support for 'cp', 'chmod' and  'rsync'.  In
           this case it may help to install so-called Optware on your device if available.

           WARNING: THIS IS ONLY FOR EXPERIENCED USERS!
           If  you don't know how to compile packages and how to modify a Linux system you should
           NOT try to do this. There is a significant chance to break your  device  and  make  it
           completely  unusable  with  the following procedure. We will not take any warranty for
           this. Make a backup of your device before proceed! You have been warned!

           You should install at least packages called 'bash', 'coreutils' and 'rsync'.  You will
           have to change users default shell from '/bin/sh' to '/opt/bin/bash' in '/etc/passwd'.
           Add  '/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:'  to  the  start  of  the  PATH  environment   variable   in
           '/etc/profiles'.

           To  check  if  it  does  work  you  can  compare  the  output  of '/bin/cp --help' and
           '/opt/bin/cp --help'.  If 'ssh <user>@<host> cp --help' called from your PC will print
           the  same  as  '/opt/bin/cp  --help'  called  on  the remote host (via interactive ssh
           session) you are ready to go.

           If you have questions on how to install and configure the Optware please refer to  the
           community  of  your  device.  You  can also take a look on BackInTime FAQ on Launchpad
           https://answers.launchpad.net/backintime/+faqs

           If you successfully modified your device to be able to make backups over ssh, it would
           be nice if you write a 'How to' on Launchpad's Answers so we can add this to the FAQ.

       SSH encrypted
           Store encrypted snapshots on remote hosts using SSH. Backintime uses 'encfs --reverse'
           to mount the root filesystem '/'. Rsync will sync this encrypted  view  of  '/'  to  a
           remote  host over SSH. All encoding will be done on the local machine. So the password
           will never be exposed to the remote host and you can use the (normally) more  powerful
           processor  in you local machine for encryption instead of weak NAS CPU's. The downside
           on this  is  'encfs  --reverse'  does  not  support  'Filename  Initialization  Vector
           Chaining'  and 'Per-File Initialization Vectors' from the standard configuration (take
           a look at 'man encfs' for further informations).

           Because of all data is transferred encrypted the log output shows encrypted filenames,
           too.  In  the  Logview-Dialog  you  can  use  'decode'  option  to  decrypt  the paths
           automatically or  you  can  use  'backintime  --decode'  to  manually  decrypt  paths.
           Backintime will show all snapshots decoded so you can browse all files as normal.

           Exclude  does not support wildcards ('foo*', '[fF]oo', 'fo?') because after encoding a
           file these wildcards can't match any more. Only separate asterisk that  match  a  full
           file  or  folder  will  work  ('foo/*',  'foo/**/bar').  All  other excludes that have
           wildcards will be silently ignored.

           Please refer to the 'SSH' section  above  for  informations  on  setting  up  the  SSH
           connection.

   Password
       If  'Save  Password  to  Keyring'  is  activated  BackinTime  will  save the Password into
       GnomeKeyring (Seahorse) or KDE-KWallet. Both are secure password  storages  which  encrypt
       the  password  with  the users login-password. So they can only be accessed if the user is
       logged in.

       A backup cronjob during the user isn't  logged  in  can  not  collect  the  password  from
       keyring.  Also  if  the  homedir  is encrypted the keyring is not accessible from cronjobs
       (even if the user is logged in). For these cases the password can be  cached  in  RAM.  If
       'Cache  Password for Cron' is activated BackinTime will start a small daemon in user-space
       which will collect the password from keyring and provide  them  for  cronjobs.  They  will
       never be written to the harddrive but a user with root permissions could access the daemon
       and read the password.

   user-callback
       During backup process the application can call a user callback at different  steps.   This
       callback  is  "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/backintime/user-callback"  (by default $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is
       ~/.config).

       The first argument is the profile id (1=Main Profile, ...).

       The second argument is the profile name.

       The third argument is the reason:

              1      Backup process begins.

              2      Backup process ends.

              3      A new snapshot was taken. The extra arguments are snapshot ID  and  snapshot
                     path.

              4      There was an error. The second argument is the error code.
                     Error codes:

                     1      The application is not configured.

                     2      A "take snapshot" process is already running.

                     3      Can't find snapshots folder (is it on a removable drive ?).

                     4      A snapshot for "now" already exist.

OPTIONS (use these before other actions)

       --profile <profile name>
              select profile by name

       --profile-id <profile id>
              select profile by id

       --keep-mount
              Don't    unmount    on    exit.   Only   valid   with   --snapshots-list-path   and
              --last-snapshot-path.

       --quiet
              suppress status messages on standard output.

       --config PATH
              read config from PATH.

       --checksum
              force to use checksum for checking if files have been changed. This is the same  as
              'Use  checksum  to detect changes' in Options. But you can use this to periodically
              run checksums from cronjobs.

ACTIONS

       -b, --backup
              take a snapshot now (if needed)

       --backup-job
              take a snapshot (if needed) depending on schedule rules (used for cron jobs)

       --snapshots-path
              display path where is saves the snapshots (if configured)

       --snapshots-list
              display the list of snapshot IDs (if any)

       --snapshots-list-path
              display the paths to snapshots (if any)

       --last-snapshot
              display last snapshot ID (if any)

       --last-snapshot-path
              display the path to the last snapshot (if any)

        --unmount
              Unmount the profile.

       --benchmark-cipher [SIZE]
              Show a benchmark of all ciphers for ssh transfer.

       --pw-cache [start|stop|restart|reload|status]
              Control the Password Cache Daemon. If no argument is given the Password Cache  will
              start in foreground.

       --decode [PATH]
              decode encrypted PATH. If no PATH is given Backintime will read paths from standard
              input.

       --restore [WHAT [WHERE [SNAPSHOT_ID]]]
              Restore file WHAT to path WHERE from snapshot SNAPSHOT_ID. If arguments are missing
              they will be prompted. To restore to the original path WHERE can be an empty string
              '' or just press Enter at the prompt. SNAPSHOT_ID can be an index (starting with  0
              for   the   last   snapshot)   or   the   exact   SnapshotID   (19  caracters  like
              '20130606-230501-984')

       -h, --help
              display a short help

       -v, --version
              show version

       --license
              show license

SEE ALSO

       backintime-gnome, backintime-kde4, backintime-config.

       Back In Time also has a website: http://backintime.le-web.org

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by BIT Team(<bit-team@lists.launchpad.net>).