Raspberry PI backup strategy

[OWK]

Dear Forum

Can someone please advise on rPI backup and restore strategy

I'm running DomotiGa on Raspberry PI B-model 512MB. Before upgrading to a new version Domotiga or rPI firmware I like to have a working restore procedure in place.

I made a backup using Win32DiskImage as advised on the rPI forum. But writing an image to a SD card is a problem because an error is indicating the image does not fit the empty SD card, altough it is the same type, size and brand.
I restored an image to an SD card one size larger, that works OK. But if you make a back-up of that card the size of te backup is grown to that card size...

Then tested Win SCP and tried to make a file copy, but ran into 'access denied' errors on the folder Dev, so i'm not able ro make a full backup this way.

What kind of backup software, strategy (file backup, image, etc) are you using and have you tested a restore of it to an SD card?

Thanks for helping!
OWK

[PHiAX]

I use USBIT

http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/

[OWK]

Time to update on this issue.

USBit creates also a bit copy of the SD card, so has the same issue as Win32DiskImager has: Restore to the same card is OK. Restoring to another card of the same size and brand is not. This is due to the fact that a SD card does not always have the same size as the originally card the back-up was made from.

Found rpi-clone (https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone), to make a clone of the SD card in a running rPI.
Cloning and booting form it works like a charm.

-Plugin a USB card reader into the running rPI
-Insert an equally or lager sized SD card into that card reader
-Start rPI-clone using -f switch (force the building of partitions equal to the original card in the rPI): sudo rpi-clone sdn -f

Note: the rpi-clone command includes SDn, respresenting the SD card in your USB card reader (something like sda)

Find the correct device assingment with: cat /proc/partitions

major minor #blocks name
179 0 7977472 mmcblk0 <------ SD card in RPI SD card slot
179 1 57344 mmcblk0p1
179 2 7916032 mmcblk0p2
8 0 7782400 sda <------ SD card in USB card reader. Use this to clone to
8 1 71680 sda1
8 2 124928 sda2
8 3 7579648 sda3