Déjà Dup Backup Tool has been an effective backup application for Ubuntu Linux. For this reason, it has been made as the premium backup tool for Ubuntu and comes pre-installed with Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. What makes it quite a handy tool is the fact that it is a simple backup tool,which hides the complexity of backing up data within an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface). Some of the main features of Déjà Dup Backup Tool are as follows:

• It supports local, remote and cloud backup locations, such an external or local drive, an SSH/FTP server, Amazon S3, Ubuntu One, Rackspace and the like.

• It securely encrypts and compresses your personal data.

• It provides incremental back ups, letting you restore data from a particular backup.

• It allows scheduling regular backups.

In this post I will provide a complete guide regarding the process involved in using Deja Dub Backup for creating a backup for your data.

When you launch Déjà Dup Backup Tool, it provides you with two options, i.e. to either restore files from a previously created backup or to see backup settings. As we are creating a new backup, we will go to the backup settings.

To start the backup process, go to Storage (within backup settings), select a backup location to save the backup data to (e.g. an external drive, local disk, etc) and enter a name for the backup folder that is to be created.

Now, go to “Folders” section and select the folders to backup. You can also add folders to an ignore list, by adding them to the right hand side pane.

Once done, you can optionally schedule the backup process to be executed at a define time.

Alternatively, head over to the “Overview” tab and make sure that automatic backup is turned Off. The Overview section provides a complete overview of the selected backup folder, the name of the folders that have been selected for backup and the ones added to the ignore list (if any). It also displays the most recent backup and next automatic backup details. Your old backups are normally kept until the backup location starts running on low disk space. This is because of the incremental backup procedure.

Incremental backup: For those of you who may be unaware of this term, it is a backup mechanism which preserves data by creating successive copies of the data containing only a specific portion, which has changed since the preceding copy has been created. For example, if you backup up data on Monday and add a file e.g. “ABC” on Tuesday (before performing the next backup), then the new backup will only gain the extra file called “ABC” instead of changing all the backup files.

To directly backup data, click Backup Now (if you are not using schedule backup).

This will backup data to your selected destination folder.

To Restore data, open Déjà Dup Backup Tool and select the “Restore Files” option. Deja Dup Backup Tool can be easily searched and installed in Ubuntu, via the Ubuntu Software Center, you can also download it from the Launchpad link given below.

(You may also find Back in Time application to be useful. It is another backup tool, which can be used as an alternative to Déjà Dup Backup).

Download Déjà Dup Backup Tool