Backup Tool

This Trac installation is setup for the project I'm working on for Google's Summer of Code, under the Fedora Project. The below application I submitted to Google will give you more info on what this is all about.

Synopsis

A tool to backup a user's important data (mail, settings, documents, etc) to a user-configurable location (including, but not limited to, a removable drive).

Benefits to the Fedora Project / the OSS Community

There is currently no graphical backup tool included in the Fedora Core distribution, or indeed any of the other 'main' distros. By developing this tool for Fedora, it will give users another reason to choose it over its competitors and assuming the tool becomes popular enough to be included in other distros, Linux in general.

Deliverables

An architecture independent, easy-to-use tool written in Python and GTK+ to perform backups of a user's files. Packaged as RPM (of course :))

Project Details

The tool will be developed in Python, using GTK+ for the interface. By using rdiff-backup as the backend for the program, more of the development time will be spent on creating a stable and usable interface without needing to worry too much about the implementation of the actual backup routines. rdiff-backup has already proven itself to be a worthy backup system and it makes sense to build upon the groundwork that has already been laid. It is also written in Python, which makes the job of integrating the two tools a lot easier. Planned/potential features planned for the program include:

• Nautilus Emblems - The GNOME file browser Nautilus has the ability to add emblems to individual files and directories, and this could be exploited to further integrate the backup tool into the OS. For example, the user could tag all files they wish to be backed up with a 'backup' emblem, then tell the tool to backup any files in their home directory with that emblem. Similarly, they could tag certain files they wish to be excluded and the tool would skip over these when performing a backup. The emblem metadata is stored as XML in the user's home dir, so would be easy enough to process in Python.
• Auto detection of files/settings to be backed up - Having the tool search for recognised settings and files in the user's home dir could be handy, and would save the user from having to poke around in hidden directories. Programming the tool to be able to recognise data such as Gaim account details + logs, Firefox bookmarks and Thunderbird email would be relatively trivial. Presenting these to the user as a list of 'detected settings' would be a real time saver.
• cronjobs, backup at logout/shutdown - Backing up certain files on a regular basis using cron - could be useful for backing up work on a remotely-accessed machine, or to some form of permanently attached storage on a desktop machine. Giving the user the option to backup when they logout or shutdown the workstation would ensure they don't forget to backup any important data.
• GNOME-VFS integration - Allowing the user to backup to/from a samba, NFS or other VFS-type location could be handy, although I suspect some vast modifications would have to be made to rdiff-backup to accomplish this.

Project Schedule

See the  Roadmap for the project's current progress.