The Backup Plan - Software - What is yours?

[MultiUser]

So,
I like to have a "backup plan" file on my NAS for when I spin up a new VM or bare metal.
This gives me a good place to start when I start up a new machine.

VLC
Handbrake
libdvdcss.dll
EaseUS Partition Manager
GParted
Putty
Advanced IP Scanner
NordVPN
Qbittorrent
PowerToys
Aomei Partition and Cloning Tools
My Motherboard BIOS
My Motherboard Drivers
My Motherboard RGB, Tools, Etc..
Windows Media Creator
Latest Windows.iso
Latest Ubuntu Build
Balena Etcher
Rufus
Raspberry Pi Imager
NAS ISOs
NAS Configs Backup
Router Firmware and Config Backup
OPNSense/ PFSense ISO
OPNSense/ PFSense config Backup
7Zip

Put the following in a 7Zip Archive and Password Protectencrypt all this)

• My Windows Keys Backup
• Password Backup Files (exported from Browser)
• Browser Bookmark Backups

I would love to know what you guys have on your software backup plan list. If you have a list.
Also, what are your recovery strategies for when you have these situations.

NEW VM
NEW BareMetal
After a Crash

 

[louie1961]

I am not sure I am understanding your question. I don't really back up software. I only back up data for the most part. I run a Synology NAS that is the primary store for all of our data. Every PC in the house uses Synology Drive to synchronize all data to the NAS. I then run a hyper backup job to backup the Synology to home built raspberry pi NAS I built, running rsync and openmediavault. The Synology also does a nightly backup to Amazon Glacier. If a PC were to crash, I would just reload the OS and synchronize the data back to it. As far as my Proxmox server, I do have a Debian 12 template for rapidly spinning up a new VM. And I backup all my VMs locally on a different disk and on an NFS share from Raspberry Pi/OMV NAS.

As far as my browser stuff, I just sync my account through Firefox to their cloud. Passwords are saved in Keepass on the Synology.

I generally do not back up copies of software. All of that is easily downloaded from the net.

 

[Sean Ho]

Personal data (documents, photos, password manager DB, etc.) are irreplaceable and covered by tested, automated, 3-2-1 backup.

Software config (private VPN setup, distribution of ssh pubkeys, etc.) is scripted by ansible, with secrets/credentials managed separately (Vault would be an option).

Software packages (zip/rpm/deb, as well as the OS itself) is downloaded upon reinstall, via ansible role.

It has been very instructive to practise blowing away a node and rebuilding it from scratch; with ansible it's doable within a few minutes.

 

[MultiUser]

Software packages (zip/rpm/deb, as well as the OS itself) is downloaded upon reinstall, via ansible role.

Could you elaborate? I dont know ansible, but it sounds like it would be worth checking into.

 

[MultiUser]

I am not sure I am understanding your question. I don't really back up software. I only back up data for the most part.

Maybe I didn't make the clearest of posts.

But what I mean is this:
I have a file on my NAS that has the listed programs and software as a "backup" so I don't have to RE-download each and every piece of software if and when I spin up a new VM or if my computer should crash.

Maybe there is a better way to do this, or maybe you would have a different list of software that you think is better or more efficient in the case of creating a new VM or in the case of a computer crash, etc..

I just wanted to get peoples opinion on this practice and see if there is a better way to do it.
Also to see what people think of as "important" enough to "backup" software and file wise I mean.

Hopefully this clears up your misunderstanding of the post.

Cheers.

 

[louie1961]

when I spin up a new VM or if my computer should crash.

What I do is create a VM template in proxmox that I clone for spinning up a new VM. I prefer to use Debian as my base OS for virtually all VMs on my server. So rather than storing the Debian ISO, I store a template that is all set up with the packages I want, etc. Otherwise I just re-download the software I want, just to be sure I have the latest. I find with my home internet I can download a 4gb ISO image in a couple of minutes. I especially like to down;load the latest version on windows machines. I tend to do a fresh re-install of windows every 12-18 months as windows seems to slow down with age.

 

[Sean Ho]

Definitely fits the use-case for ansible / puppet / chef / salt / etc. It's basically your "list of installed software" but machine-readable for scripted reinstall. Also can apply software config via jinja templates. The "idempotent" idea is that you can re-run ansible (even on a nighly cron job) and rather than do a full reinstall every time, it only fixes anything that deviates from your specified config (e.g., if a config file was manually changed). It's a clean way of recording any customisations you make on top of the stock install.

You can then track the ansible roles and inventory variables as git repos, thus keeping an annotated history of your software config, even submit changes for approval by higher-ups in your org via pull requests, etc. -- all that gitops goodness.

You can use ansible for the software install/config, in conjunction with terraform / cloud-init for the basic provisioning of the VM.

 

[MultiUser]

use-case for ansible / puppet / chef / salt / etc. via jinja templates. The "idempotent" idea terraform / cloud-init

Its like you are speaking a different language to me. You are so above my level Sean Ho... Thanks for your input though.

 

[mattventura]

For a physical machine, you can save a lot of time by just occasionally taking a full disk image backup. Just dd the image back onto the new drive, and you've got a working system once again.

For installers and such, I do keep backups, but especially for things that don't auto-update, I'd rather just download the most recent version rather than installing an old version.

For backups of everything else, zrepl. Has the same benefit where I get effectively a full disk image apart from the bootloader.