Ubuntu 22.04 System Backup and Restore

The purpose of this tutorial is to show how to install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish and use the program to perform a backup of the system, and subsequently restore the system from that backup.

Most Linux users love to customize their Linux system to their liking. If your system becomes unusable, all of this work put into customizing your system will be lost, because you have to reinstall Ubuntu and start over.

Timeshift is an application that will backup your system settings and files. It does NOT backup personal files. Taking a snapshot with Timeshift will allow you to browse that snapshot any time, like you would a normal directory of files. If your system gets corrupted or goes through some undesirable change, it is easy to restore your system as it was by using Timeshift.

Let’s see how to install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish and make a backup of our system files.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to install Timeshift on Ubuntu 22.04
• How to use Timeshift to create a backup snapshot
• How to restore a Timeshift snapshot backup
• How to use Timeshift from the command line

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions

Category	Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System	Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish
Software	Timeshift
Other	Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions	# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

Ubuntu 22.04 System Backup and Restore step by step instructions

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Using the following steps we will first create system backup of the Ubuntu 22.04 system using the Timeshift graphical user interface. Later we will restore from the previously created system backup snapshot. Let’s get started.

First step is to install the Timeshift backup utility on your Ubuntu 22.04 System. To do this, open a command line terminal and execute the following two apt commands with root permissions.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install timeshift

Create Backup by using the Timeshift GUI

Create system backup

1. Open the timeshift application via top left Activities menu. Upon opening the timeshift application you will be greeted with a wizard to help you schedule your backups. Here you have two options. First is to use the rsync protocol as a main backup tool or take an advantage of an inherent BRTFS built-in file system features. In this example we will use rsync. Select RSYNC and hit the Next button.

   

   NOTE
   The rsync method will use hard links to make sure that repeat files from multiple backups do not take up extra space. So do not worry about each backup taking up a lot of space. The first backup will be by far the biggest one.
2. Select backup destination. timeshift will search your system for available file system partitions and provide you with an option on where to create backup file.

   

3. Select how often you wish to perform the system backup and how many backup snapshots you wish to retrain before the first backup is overwritten.

   

4. As the screenshot indicates the home directories are excluded by default. Depending on your work environment select whether you wish to include home directories into the backup.

   

   
   

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5. This will conclude your initial backup schedule setup. Hit the Finish button.

   

6. The backup has not been created yet. You can either wait until the timeshift automatically triggers the backup or simply hit the Create button to perform the previously predefined backup now.

   

7. Wait for the backup to complete. This could take a few minutes.

   

8. If all went well you should now see your first backup snapshot listed.

   

9. Restore from backup

   At this point we will restore the system from the previously created system backup snapshot. Select a backup snapshot from which you wish to restore and click on the Restore button.

   

10. Timeshift give you an option on how to restore from your backup. Unless you know what you are doing simply hit the Next button to go with the default.
    

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11. The Timeshit application will provide you with a list of changes it will take to restore from the backup just to make sure no data is lost in the process.

    

12. Once you hit the Next button the system will be restored and restarted. All done.

    

Create and restore backup by using the Timeshift’s command line

1. Create a first backup simply by executing the below command:

   $ sudo timeshift --create
   

   The above command will also create a new configuration file located at the following location: /etc/timeshift.json.

   The output will look something like this:

   First run mode (config file not found)
   Selected default snapshot type: RSYNC
   Mounted /dev/sda2 at /media/root/359151f5-efb9-483d-a738-894d57e2d8c8.
   Selected default snapshot device: /dev/sda2
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Estimating system size...
   Creating new snapshot...(RSYNC)
   Saving to device: /dev/sda2, mounted at path: /media/root/359151f5-efb9-483d-a738-894d57e2d8c8
   Synching files with rsync...
   Created control file: /media/root/359151f5-efb9-483d-a738-894d57e2d8c8/timeshift/snapshots/2020-02-19_18-32-36/info.json
   RSYNC Snapshot saved successfully (39s)
   Tagged snapshot '2022-02-23_18-32-36': ondemand
   

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2. List all your currently created system backup screenshots:

   $ sudo timeshift --list
   

   The output:

   Device : /dev/sda2
   UUID   : 359151f5-efb9-483d-a738-894d57e2d8c8
   Path   : /media/root/359151f5-efb9-483d-a738-894d57e2d8c8
   Mode   : RSYNC
   Device is OK
   1 snapshots, 197.7 GB free
   
   Num     Name                 Tags  Description  
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0    >  2022-02-23_18-32-36  O 
   

3. Restore from the backup snapshot:

   $ sudo timeshift --restore --snapshot "2022-02-23_18-32-36"
   

4. Delete selected backup snapshot:

   $ sudo timeshift --delete  --snapshot '2022-02-23_18-32-36'
   

Closing Thoughts

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In this tutorial, we learned how to install the Timeshift application on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux and use the program to create a backup snapshot of our system files. We then saw how to restore the snapshot that we created. Timeshift is a great way to save the countless customization that you make to your Ubuntu 22.04 system in order to get it exactly the way you want. It provides peace of mind knowing that you can restore a previous snapshot any time that something goes awry.