Create crash-consistent whole disk or raw partition backups without having to use a copy-on-write snapshot.
Please read the advantages and especially disadvantages listed below before attempting to use this software.
TrackUp keeps track of modifications to block devices as they are being copied. Data which has been modified during the copy process is marked as dirty and will be copied again later. This process is repeated until the copy holds an up-to-date mirror image of the original block device.
Can create a crash-consistent backup of a live running system.
No copy-on-write snapshot file or partition is required, so trackup can be run regardless of available disk space or partitioning.
Compatible with most modern Linux setups out-of-the-box. TrackUp uses the commonly available sysfs and kernel debugfs filesystems to track changes on block devices, so no additional kernel drivers are required.
Back up to a file or another block device.
Experimental software! Not tested as thoroughly as more mainstream backup solutions. It is a rather hacky program, and is best suited to casual use. I know that does not sound great for a backup program, but it seems to work for me.
Cannot run concurrently with other instances of TrackUp, or any other program which uses kernel tracing features via debugfs (e.g. blktrace). Running multiple instances of this program at once will likely result in non-crash-consistent backups!
Unlike other backup solutions, the backup is crash-consistent at the time the backup completes, not when it starts.
Backups might never complete if there is a continual high rate of modifications and the copying process cannot keep up.
No compression or incremental backups.