Provided by: backintime-common_1.3.3-4_all bug

NAME

       backintime - a simple backup tool for Linux.

       This is the command line tool.  The graphical tool is backintime-qt.

SYNOPSIS

       backintime  [--checksum] [--config PATH] [--debug] [--delete] [--help | -h] [--keep-mount]
       [--license] [--local-backup | --no-local-backup]  [--no-crontab]  [--only-new]  [--profile
       NAME | --profile-id ID] [--quiet] [--share-path PATH] [--version]

       {  backup  |  backup-job  |  benchmark-cipher [FILE-SIZE] | check-config | decode [PATH] |
       last-snapshot  |  last-snapshot-path  |  pw-cache   [start|stop|restart|reload|status]   |
       remove[-and-do-not-ask-again]  [SNAPSHOT_ID]  |  restore  [WHAT  [WHERE  [SNAPSHOT_ID]]] |
       shutdown | smart-remove | snapshots-list | snapshots-list-path | snapshots-path |  unmount
       }

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 'sudo -i backintime'.

       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 10MiB, unchanged for 10 snapshots, will use only 10MiB
       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).  Back In Time uses 'encfs'
           with standard configuration to encrypt all data.  Please take a  look  at  A  NOTE  ON
           SECURITY.

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

           Finally type 'ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.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  rather  stay  on
           'default'.

           Please  read  security  information  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  or  Entware  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'.
           To add '/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:' to the start of the PATH environment  you  can  use  'Add
           prefix to SSH commands' in 'Expert Options' with 'PATH=/opt/bin:/opt/sbin:\$PATH'.

           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 Back In Time FAQ on GitHub
           https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/wiki/FAQ

           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 information). Please  take  a  look  at  A  NOTE  ON
           SECURITY.

           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. Back In
           Time 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  information  on setting up the SSH
           connection.

   Password
       If 'Save Password to Keyring' is activated Back  In  Time  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 Back In Time 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.

              5      On (graphical) App start.

              6      On (graphical) App close.

              7      Mount all necessary drives.

              8      Unmount all drives.

OPTIONS

       --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. Only valid with backup, backup-job and restore.

       --config PATH
              Read config from PATH. Default = ~/.config/backintime/config

       --debug
              Show debug messages.

       --delete
              Restore and delete newer files which are not in the  snapshot.   WARNING:  deleting
              files in filesystem root could break your whole system!!!  Only valid with restore.

       -h, --help
              Display a short help

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

       --license
              Show license

       --local-backup
              Create backup files before changing local files.  Only valid with restore.

       --no-crontab
              Do not install crontab entries.  Only valid with check-config.

       --no-local-backup
              Temporary disable creation of backup files before changing local files.  Only valid
              with restore.

       --only-new
              Only  restore  files  which  does not exist or are newer than those in destination.
              Using "rsync --update" option.  Only valid with restore.

       --profile NAME
              Select profile by name

       --profile-id ID
              Select profile by id

       --quiet
              Suppress status messages on standard output.

       --share-path PATH
              Write runtime data (locks, messages, log and mountpoints) to PATH.

       -v, --version
              Show version

COMMANDS

       backup | -b | --backup
              Take a snapshot now.

       backup-job | --backup-job
              Take a snapshot (if needed) depending on schedule rules (used for cron jobs).  Back
              In Time will run in background for this.

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

       check-config
              Verify the profile in config, create snapshot path and crontab entries.

       decode | --decode [PATH]
              Decode  encrypted  PATH.  If  no  PATH  is  given Back In Time will read paths from
              standard input.

       last-snapshot | --last-snapshot
              Display last snapshot ID (if any)

       last-snapshot-path | --last-snapshot-path
              Display the path to the last snapshot (if any)

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

       remove[-and-do-not-ask-again] | --remove[-and-do-not-ask-again] [SNAPSHOT_ID]
              Remove the snapshot. If SNAPSHOT_ID is missing it will be prompted. SNAPSHOT_ID can
              be an index (starting with 0 for the last snapshot) or  the  exact  SnapshotID  (19
              caracters like '20130606-230501-984').  remove-and-do-not-ask-again will remove the
              snapshot immediately.  Be careful with this!

       restore | --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')

       shutdown
              Shutdown the computer after the snapshot is done.

       smart-remove
              Remove snapshots based on the configured Smart-Remove pattern.

       snapshots-list | --snapshots-list
              Display the list of snapshot IDs (if any)

       snapshots-list-path | --snapshots-list-path
              Display the paths to snapshots (if any)

       snapshots-path | --snapshots-path
              Display path where is saves the snapshots (if configured)

       unmount | --unmount
              Unmount the profile.

A NOTE ON SECURITY

       There was a paid security audit for EncFS in Feb 2014  which  revealed  several  potential
       vulnerabilities.

       From https://defuse.ca/audits/encfs.htm
              EncFS  is  probably  safe  as  long  as  the  adversary  only  gets one copy of the
              ciphertext and nothing more. EncFS is not safe if the adversary has the opportunity
              to  see  two or more snapshots of the ciphertext at different times. EncFS attempts
              to protect files from malicious modification, but there are serious  problems  with
              this feature.

       This might be a problem with Back In Time snapshots.

SEE ALSO

       backintime-qt, backintime-config.

       Back In Time also has a website: https://github.com/bit-team/backintime

AUTHOR

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