HomeAssistantRsyncBackup.md

Copy Home Assistant Snapshots to a USB stick for protection.

NOTE: this does NOT create the snaps, it merly copies them when manually or automatically created.

NOTE2: This requires rsync to be installed, so you need access to the underlying OS! HASSOS mostlikely won't work.

Requirements

An EXT4 formatted USB stick with sufficient capacity

Mount the USB Stick, als after reboot (automatic)

Create a folder to mount to: mkdir /media/habackup

Find the disk position and UUID of your USB stick: sudo blkid -o list

Mount the drive: sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb2 /media/habackup -o defaults

Mount the drive on Linux boot: sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the line: UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx /media/habackup ext4 defaults 0

install and first run rsync

Install rsync: sudo apt install rsync

Test rysync from HA Back-up folder to USD Backup folder (Files on stick will be deleted!) sudo rsync --delete -avu "/usr/share/hassio/backup/" "/media/habackup"

NOTE: use SUDO here since the EXT mounted flash drive is Root accessable only at first, but after reboot it's user accesable.

Automate rsync to run every night

If you want rsync to run every night, add it to the crontab:

Open Crontab: sudo crontab -e

Add the lines:

Rsync backups to a mapped USB drive for back-up off system quick and dirty

0 5 * * * rsync --delete -avu "/usr/share/hassio/backup/" "/media/habackup"

For reference, a Crontab line to delte images shot from my webcam > 28 days:

clean up old camera image files

0 4 * * * root find /usr/share/hassio/media/cameras/ ( -iname '*jpeg' -o -iname '*jpg' ! -iname 'latest' ) -type f -mtime +28 -delete