Kup Backup System

Kup Backup System is an open source and freely distributed graphical software implemented in Qt and designed to allow Linux users to easily backup their entire filesystems or just a specified folder/file. It is tailored specifically for the KDE desktop environment.

Features at a glance

Key features include support for backup destinations (local or external), support for schedules, the ability to mount and unmount backup archives, as well as support for two backup types, synchronized folders with the use of the rsync program and incremental backup archive with the use of "bup."

Moreover, Kup Backup System comprises of a configuration module, so you can easily configure your backup plans, a tiny program running in the background that will monitor your backup destination, a kioslave for accessing bup archives, and a file browsing application for bup archives.

Getting started with Kup Backup System

For your convenience, the application is available for download as native installers for the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.10, Fedora 19, Fedora 20, Debian 7, openSUSE 12.3, openSUSE 13.1, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Gentoo and Arch Linux operating systems, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit computer architectures. Of course, a source archive is also available for download.

To install it, download the file that corresponds to your computer’s hardware architecture and operating system, save it somewhere on your computer, double-click it and follow the on-screen instructions. Once installed, it can be accessed easily and quickly from the main menu of your desktop environment. Please keep in mind that while it has been designed for KDE, Kup Backup System is compatible with several other open source desktop environments.

After you’ve configured the application and selected the files/folders for the backup, it will started archiving all the items to an external USB device (flash drive or HDD). Once the backup process has finished, remove the external device. Next time when you will connect the device to your computer, the software will automatically backup new and modified files.

What is new in this release:

• Show hard drives that are not listed as hotpluggable, but still considered removable. Fixes some cases where a plugged in USB3 harddrive did not show up and could not be selected as backup destination.
• Now allows free selection of unreadable folders but instead warns the user about any unreadable files or folders in the set of current folders to be backed up.
• Now detects if there are any symbolic links being backed up that points to something not being backed up. Shows a warning in that case.
• Updated translations, added Bosnian language.
• Improved messages in the log file.
• Bugfix for the case of no folder selected in the source selection. The entire folder selection tree was impossible to use because of a bug in Qt.

What is new in version 0.5.1:

• Bug fix for source selection: there was a situation where the folder selection collapsed and could not be expanded when dealing with hidden folders, this has now been fixed.
• Expand to show selected hidden folders when enabling "show hidden folders".
• Add ".local/share/Trash" as a default exclude for new backup plans.
• Change how includes and excludes are shown in the source selection, hopefully this way it should be clearer what will be backed up.
• Add an error message, correct some texts, update all translations. Contains big improvements to polish, german, italian and portugese translation.

What is new in version 0.5.0:

• Add option to generate recovery information that can be used to fix broken bup backup archive.
• Add option to do integrity testing of bup archive every time a new backup is taken. In case something is broken and you are generating recovery information it will ask you if you want to try repairing the files.
• Now the configuration dialog warns about dataloss when using rsync in combination with fat32 or ntfs.
• Keep a log file of last backup job, can be viewed from system tray menu.
• Bugfix for viewing files in a bup archive containing more than 1000 separate backups.
• Cosmetic fixes and more informative texts in the configuration dialog.
• Add complete translation to Chinese(taiwan) and Lithuanian.

What is new in version 0.4.0:

• Bug fix: detect encrypted partitions on external hard drives.
• Small update to keep up-to-date with new metadata format in bup v0.25
• Add German, Italian and Swedish translations. Tagalog and Spanish are still only partial.

What is new in version 0.4.0 Beta 1:

• Add kioslave for accessing files and folders directly from any git archive (including bup archives, of course!). Comes complete with support for metadata scheduled to be available with the soon-to-come 0.25 version of bup. Please test! Just type "bup://" in a kde-based filemanager (dolphin, konqueror, krusader et al)
• Add a new application called filedigger, it helps you find the right version of a file and then also helps you restore that file. You can open folders and files to have a look at them before restoring, thanks to the new kioslave.
• Add rsync-type of backups.

What is new in version 0.3.2:

• Add german, italian and tagalog translations.
• Make it more difficult to create a backup plan without a destination. (Select first usb drive automatically when connected, warn user if no drive is selected when saving)

What is new in version 0.3.1:

• Fix running with older versions of bup by removing compression level option, not useful for most people anyway.
• Check if bup is installed, notify user if not.
• Add Spanish translation.

What is new in version 0.3:

• Adds an option to take the backup as root. Useful when you want to backup system files which needs root access to read.
• Now checks if you are inactive (no mouse or keyboard activity) when accumulating usage time. For instance, Kup will no longer count time watching a movie on your computer as active usage time.
• Adds ability to configure which compression level is used for backups.
• Adds the option of selecting/deselecting hidden folders.
• Adds infrastructure for translations and a swedish translation. Help with other languages would be appreciated!
• Now sets the CPU and (on linux) the IO scheduler priority of the backup processes to be very nice, just to minimize risk of a running backup disturbing you.
• Fixes a couple of bugs in the folder selection tree.
• Shows more info about external drives connected and now also remembers more info about the drive you have selected.
• Now uses the bup index file in your home directory instead of having the index file located in the destination archive. This can perhaps give better performance in some scenarios, not tested.
• Adds a few hidden folders in your home directory as default excludes, should be useful for most people.

Requirements:

• KDE Plasma
• CMake
• Qt