Back In Time

How to install backintime without some of the dependencies

Asked by Martin J.H.

I am running a small home-server, based on Ubuntu server edition. I want to keep it as lightweight as possible, so I did not install any GUI stuff.

I saw that the newest versions of backintime can do restores via the command-line, so I wanted to give it a try. My goal is to backup important files to a locally attached USB drive.

But when I started to install backintime-common (from the launchpad repository, of course), I saw that it has a lot more dependencies than I thought (I had once tried backintime 1.0.10). For me, apt-get wanted to install:

> The following NEW packages will be installed:
> backintime-common encfs fuse libboost-serialization1.49.0
> libboost-system1.49.0 libfuse2 librlog5 powermgmt-base python-crypto
> python-keyring sshfs

 Most of these seem to be necessary only for network stuff (sshfs, for example), and I would prefer to not install that on my server. (I don't have any rational arguments against sshfs or the other dependencies, its mostly out of superstition).

I can think of ways to not install the dependencies. But how much would that break?

Is there a way to compile a sort-of "minimal version" of backintime that is more lightweight?

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Back In Time Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Germar
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Best Germar (germar) said : 		#1

If you don't want to use SSH transfer or encrypted backups you are safe to remove 'sshfs' and 'encfs' from dependencies (BIT will ask to install them if you try to use them). This should eliminate at least 'encfs fuse libboost-serialization1.49.0 libboost-system1.49.0 libfuse2 librlog5 sshfs'.
Please download the current tarball from http://backintime.le-web.org/download_page/ and this patch from http://paste.ubuntu.com/6155255/
Extract the tarball, apply the patch and create .deb packages with 'makedeb.sh' which you can finally install with 'dpkg -i backintime-common*.deb'

Revision history for this message
Martin J.H. (martinhoecker) said : 		#2

Thanks Germar, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Martin J.H. (martinhoecker) said : 		#3

Wow, thanks for the quick answer and the custom patch - it worked great!

As a reference for future me, and others with a headless system:
For configuring backintime via command line (without a GUI), I followed the instructions of "man backintime-config" and created a config file from an example config. I also made sure to create the subfolder structure in my backup folder. Now, when I run "backintime --backup", everything works.

Revision history for this message
Germar (germar) said : 		#4

I moved the dependencies encfs and sshfs to recommended so with next release you can run 'apt-get --no-install-recommends install backintime-common' for this.