Data backup

As you know, the homes are too small to put larger data you might like to have backed up. So there is now a possibility to get larger data (up to 1 TB in total) backed up automatically as well. But since the total data volume could be quite large this backup will only be done once per week on the weekend and only one copy will be kept. For example, you could use this to backup images or a subset of data you created for an ongoing publication or your thesis.

If the total amount of data you want to get backed up exceeds 1 TB your data will not get backed up anymore and you will receive an automated information via email - see 1) below.

Note that during the backup all symbolic links will get dereferenced!

To get part of your data backed up every weekend you need to do the following three things:

1) Provide your email address

You need to create a file in your home with the name:

This file needs to contain just an email address to which an email will get send in case the backup did not work. Nothing else. You can change this email address any time.

2) Create directory with links to data to be backed up

You need to create a directory in your home called '~/A_sauvegarder':

Inside this directory you need to create symbolic links (with 'ln -s ...')  to all the directories/files you would like to get backed up every weekend.

The '-s' is very important!!!

'target' can be any directory or file you would like to get backed up.

You only need to put a 'link_name' if you want the name of the link to be different from the target directory or file you link to. For example, if you want to get your directory '/data_space/Project/Images' get backed up your command to create the link could look like:

      ln -s  /data_space/Project/Images

However, if you have more than one directory with the same name you would like to back up, for example, '/data_space/Project_A/Images' and '/data_space/Project_B/Images' you could create the links with:

      ln -s  /data_space/Project_A/Images   Images_A
      ln -s  /data_space/Project_B/Images   Images_B

Check the links you created with a simple:

3) Make sure the total amount of your data stays below 1 TB

Since, as usual, disk space is limited, your data will NOT get backed up if the total amounts to more than 1 TB. You can check the total space of the data you would like to get backed up with the command:

That's all folks!