Ubuntu Tip Simple Backup Command Using CP

Backing up your computers hard drive is extremely important. Should the worst happen and you lose all of your important data, you need a way back. While there are many excellent utilities in the Ubuntu repositories that handle partial and full system backups. Sometimes a simpler solution is all that is needed.

Fortunately Ubuntu and Linux in general in fact comes with everything you need in the for of the very simple but also extremely powerful cp command. In case you havent figured it out yet, cp is Linux command line speak for copy. The examples below will show you how to use cp to back up your entire system.

sudo cp -r -u -x -v [source directory] [destination directory]

Example 1:
sudo cp -r -u -x -v /home/ /media/MY_USB_DRIVE

sudo: Gives temporary root privileges.

cp: Linux command line copy command.

-r: Used with cp this switch causes cp to copy directory content recursively. Meaning it will copy all files and subdirectories in the directory being copied.

-u: Used with cp this switch causes cp to only copy files that have changed or dont already exist at the destination.

-x: Used with cp this switch stops cp jumping to other file systems which it will do if it encounters hard links or symbolic links.

This switch also stops cp eating its tail if you choose to back up your entire system. See examples 2 and 3 below.

-v: Used with cp this switch cause cp to give feed back on whats happening.

Full System Backup With CP
If we wish to perform a full system backup then we might feel inclined to use a command similar to that in Example 2 below. The trouble is without the -x switch cp will also attempt to backup the backup to the backup. Basically eating its own tail in a never ending loop until all disk space is used up.

This happens because all other file systems are mounted to a location branching from the root file system. So if root is / then home is mounted to /home. Within Ubuntu all USB drives tend to be mounted to /media/a_USB_drive, etc.

However with the -x switch the command in example 2 will not be enough to back up the entire system if there are several storage devices or file systems mounted to different mount points. To get around this problem we must write a small script that will backup each file system separately. Example 3 shows a small example where the root files system / and /home are backed up separately.

Example 2:
sudo cp -r -u -v / /media/MY_USB_DRIVE

Example 3:
#!/bin/sh
#
# cp based backup script.
#
sudo cp -r -u -x -v / /media/MY_USB_DRIVE
sudo cp -r -u -x -v /home/ /media/MY_USB_DRIVE

This script can be created in any text editor like gedit or nano. After the script has been saved it must be given permission to be run as a program. Example 4 shows the command needed to change to the directory/folder where the script is stored. How to apply execute permissions and how to run the script.

Example 4:
First open a terminal window if you havent already done so and enter the following commands. The actual location of your script is where you chose to save it.

cd /home/aikiwolfie/scripts/ (press enter)
chmod a+x my_backup_script (press enter)
./my_backup_script (press enter)

And thats it. Sit back and watch the backup script do its job.

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Uber CLI Quickly Get Uber Time To Pickup And Price Estimates From The Command Line

Installing and using Uber CLI

1. To install Uber CLI, youll need Node.js and npm.

For Ubuntu 16.04 and newer, you can use the Node.js and npm packages from the official repositories:

sudo apt install nodejs npm

For Ubuntu versions older than 16.04, youll need a newer Node.js/npm version. This can be installed by using the official Node.js repository. Youll find exact instructions HERE (in my test I installed Node.js 6.x in Ubuntu 14.04 and uber-cli installed without any issues).

2. Install Uber CLI

Before proceeding, you may wish to set up npm to allow installing packages globally without sudo. For how to do this, see our previous article. You can skip this and use the command below with sudo, but thats not recommended!

To install Uber CLI, simply type the following command in a terminal:

npm install uber-cli -g

Thats it. You can now start using Uber CLI. To get a time-to-pickup estimate, use the following command:

uber time pickup address

replacing pickup address with the address the Uber ride should pick you up.

Heres an example:

$ uber time 10 downing street london uk
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, UK ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? ? ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 2 min. ? uberPOOL,uberX,uberXL ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 4 min. ? UberEXEC ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 6 min. ? UberLUX ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 8 min. ? uberASSIST ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 17 min. ? uberWAV ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? 14 min. ? taxi ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

You may skip the city and country - in my test, this worked without any issues, but I assume it is required in cases where there are multiple streets with the same name, etc.

To get price estimates, use the following:

uber price -s start address -e end address

replacing the start and end addresses with the actual locations.

Heres an example:

$ uber price -s 10 downing street london uk -e 221b baker street london uk
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? ? ? ? ? Surge ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? uberPOOL ? �10-�11 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? uberX ? �9-�12 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? uberXL ? �13-�17 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? UberEXEC ? �17-�23 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? UberLUX ? �27-�35 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? uberASSIST ? �9-�12 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? uberWAV ? �9-�12 ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? taxi ? ?undefined-?undefined ? 3.74 mi. ? 20 min. ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? ? 10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, UK ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? ? 221B Baker St, Marylebone, London NW1 6XE, UK ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The blank cells in the examples above are Emoji, but I removed them so the columns dont get messed up. To get Emoji support in Linux, install the EmojiOne Color SVGinOT font (but note that it doesnt work properly with monospace formatted text and causes incorrect character alignment, or at least thats the case at the time Im writing this).

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Trash cli Manage Trash from Command line in Ubuntu Linux

By using a utility named trash-cli you can simply mange Trash from command line  

 The location of Trash folder in old GNOME version is (~/.Trash), in current versions it is in ~/.local/share/Trash. There is two sub folders named files and info. The files folder contains the files deleted and info directory consists of meta data for each deleted file.



First step, install trash-cli utility

$ sudo apt-get install trash-cli

It installs three commands,
1. list-trash to list down the files in trash
2. trash to move the file to trash
3. restore-trash to restore the file to original path

Usage:

$ trash love.txt      ( move the file love.txt to trash folder)

$ list-trash              (List the contents of Trash folder) 

       2011-10-27 22:46:28 /home/abc/love.txt



 $ restore-trash love.txt   (Restore the file love.txt) 

   0 2011-10-27 22:46:28 /home/abc/love.txt
What file to restore [0..0]: 0  (if there is more than one file list shows 1  2  3 etc)

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