Backups - Githubissues

Flohack74 commented 6 years ago

While thinking what to do for a better backup (my magic-device-tool-backup is not the best option so far) I thought that maybe the installer could be extended into a multi-purpose-tool for install, backup and update.

We see that Android for example has much better update support for the firmware, since most vendors have kind of a notifier app to remind users of updates, and then they also package firmware updates with normal OS updates. If we fall behind with firmware, our users might face issues that could easily be solved, especially in the radio part. Its also the only way to flash a firmware update for users that are afraid to use fastboot or cannot do it due to their skills limitation.

The same goes for the backup. I would throw in my ideas about the backup reqirements, but unfortunately I am no good node dev, so I cant implement it ;)

NeoTheThird commented 6 years ago

Yep, these are features that I wanted to work on as well, but not before some of the refactoring in #58 is done. The code complexity has to decrease significantly before we should think about adding new features.

NeoTheThird commented 5 years ago

So, i thought a little about how to best do this. The simplest way is probably to tar the home folder on the device and pull it using adb. That file can be stored either in the installer cache dir, or saved in an arbitrary location on the pc. To restore, push the file to the device and untar it over the home folder. Here's the adb commands:

# Backup
adb shell rm /tmp/backup.tar.gz || echo ""
adb shell tar -cvpzf /tmp/backup.tar.gz --exclude=/userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/upstart --exclude=/userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/*/qmlcache --exclude=/userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/*/qml_cache /userdata/user-data/phablet
adb pull /tmp/backup.tar.gz ./backup.tar.gz
# Restore
adb push ./backup.tar.gz /tmp/backup.tar.gz
adb shell tar -xvpzf /tmp/backup.tar.gz -C / --numeric-owner

NeoTheThird commented 5 years ago

And, for the record, firmware upgrades are already happening.

Flohack74 commented 5 years ago

I agree except that it could run low on diskspace if we are packing on the device, maybe we can redirct the gzip stream directly to the installer?

NeoTheThird commented 5 years ago

I agree except that it could run low on diskspace if we are packing on the device, maybe we can redirct the gzip stream directly to the installer?

I'd rather not do that. Those kinds of tasks over adb aren't very reliable and can create corrupted files. You wouldn't want your backup fail silently... If someone has very little free storage, they'll just have to exclude some more files. There's always some things you don't need to back up, like music for example.

NeoTheThird commented 4 years ago

Update: Someone started working on this on the forums.

Flohack74 commented 4 years ago

This is still missing the system-data equivalent, which might be not even readable to the phablet user. As a user I want my WiFi and other settings also backed up. the home directory does not contain this.

NeoTheThird commented 4 years ago

This is still missing the system-data equivalent, which might be not even readable to the phablet user. As a user I want my WiFi and other settings also backed up. the home directory does not contain this.

Are you sure, did you test it? Pretty sure that is in /userdata/user-data/phablet (not in /home/phablet, mind you!) as well. But we need to confirm that.

Flohack74 commented 4 years ago

Ok will take a look...