Backup beast restore

Here is the next beast! The backup-restore script that gives options for both tar and fsarchiver! You can restore system, home, partition or directory. Well, it must be short and sweet compared to many better scripting I'm sure!

If restoring user home to /home it is advisable to create a new dir there first (you can do this during dir selection by typing 'm' and it will ask for new dir name) and not unpack onto your current user home. You could also unpack a user home backup archive into /mnt/tmp and then run rsync to copy files (including dot files) into your running user home.

You'll also need to add the user to the system so that you can login, with adduser yourusername (in chroot), or try to boot and login as root and run adduser from root, logout of root and in again as the new user. If you fail to restore home before booting up the new system, just run adduser and then unpack the home backup to a tmp dir and rsync all the files into the new user's home dir.

Any problems or suggestions, please record an issue on gitlab!

See my System backup page for more info.

#!/bin/bash # bkpbeast-restore # Quick system restore with tar or fsarchiver, by David Quinton, two days in Dec 2025 # Only operates with archives made with xz or zstd compression, or with fsarchiver (files with .xz, .zst and .fsa extensions). # To restore a system, select the partition (be careful!), the script will check if it's mounted (choice to format and remount on /mnt with tar), # To restore home, either run on partition, or unpack to a directory (or /mnt/tmp option) and later use rsync to copy to your home dir. # Make Linux not war!! #===================================Variables LOC=/media/Bkp/zsysbkp XZ_OPT="-T0 -9" ZSTD_NBTHREADS=0 Form=ext4 #set the file system format for formatting partion #===================================Functions chooseTask () { while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Choose a task\n\n 1. Restore system 2. Restore user home 3. Unpack archive to a directory q quit \n\n\t" read ans case $ans in 1) Task=Rsys; chooseFile; choosePart; taskConfirm; exit 0;; 2) Task=Rhome; chooseFile; chooseLoc1; taskConfirm; exit 0;; 3) Task=Rdir; chooseFile; chooseLoc2; taskConfirm; exit 0;; [qQ]*) exit 0 ;; *) continue ;; esac done } chooseFile () { cd $LOC while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "BACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Choose an archive to restore! (.xz, .zst or .fsa) ../ to enter parent directory.\n\n" ls -dhl --color=auto "$(pwd)" IFS=$'\n' COLUMNS=1 PS3="Enter choice:" options=(../ $(ls -hl . 2>/dev/null)) # ls -hl /media/Bkp/zsysbkp | grep -e 'xz' -e 'zst' -e 'fsa' select opt in "${options[@]}"; do FilePath=$(pwd)/$(echo "$opt" | awk '{print $9}') case $opt in ../) cd .. && break ;; *) if [[ -f "$FilePath" ]]; then #check if $FilePath is a file then File=FilePath File=$FilePath; break 3 elif [[ "$opt" ]]; then dirname=$(echo "$opt" | awk '{print $9}') cd "$dirname"; break #if $opt is a dir then cd else break; fi ;; esac done done # determine ext of $File, 1st strip path from $File, then grep ext and test success or not file=`basename $File` if [[ `echo $file | grep '\.xz'` ]]; then TARoption=-xJvf; format=1 #check if file contains string elif [[ `echo $file | grep '\.zst'` ]]; then TARoption="-I zstd -xvf"; format=1 elif [[ `echo $file | grep '\.fsa'` ]]; then Archtype=FSA else printf "Your file does not carry an xz, zst or fsa extension! Aborting now!"; exit 0 fi } #select partition choosePart () { while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..5}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Select a partition - Warning it will be overwritten!\n\n" PS3="Select (type C to cancel): " options=($(ls /sys/class/block | grep -E '^(sd|hd|vd|nvme)[a-z][0-9]+|[0-9]p[0-9]+')) select opt in "${options[@]}"; do if [[ "$REPLY" == [cC] ]]; then echo "Aborted!" && return 1 #exit this fn! elif [[ -n "$opt" ]]; then Part=/dev/$opt; break 2 else printf "Invalid option" fi done done #check if part is mounted, find its mount point and mount at /mnt if not if findmnt $Part > /dev/null; then mounted=$(findmnt -n -o TARGET $Part); printf "Unmounting the partition $Part"; sudo umount $mounted else printf "\n\n\tGood news, $Part is not mounted! Continuing..." fi if [[ $format == 1 ]]; then formatPart # call formatPart choice if using tar else Targ=$Part #for confirm fn with fs fi } formatPart () { printf "\n\n\tDo you need to format $Part? (Y to format, hit Enter to skip)" read ans case $ans in "") ;; [yY]*) sudo mkfs.$Form $Part ;; *) ;; esac printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tMounting $Part at /mnt/tmp\n\n\n" sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp && sudo mount -v $Part /mnt/tmp sudo chown -R $USER /mnt/tmp Targ=/mnt/tmp #for confirm fn with tar file } newHome () { #check if new user dir needed at on the partition mounted at /mnt/tmp printf "\n\n\tCreate a user directory at /mnt/tmp? (hit Enter to skip)\n\n Enter user dir name: " read ans case $ans in "") unpackDir=/mnt/tmp ;; *) mkdir /mnt/tmp/$ans; unpackDir=/mnt/tmp/$ans ;; esac } chooseLoc1 () { cd $Browse while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Choose where to unpack the archive. \n\n 1. Find a directory in /home 2. Use another partition 3. Use /mnt/tmp q quit \n\n\t" read ans case $ans in 1) Browse=/home; chooseDir; break 2;; 2) choosePart; newHome; break 2;; 3) if [[ ! -e /mnt/tmp ]]; then printf "Creating /mnt/tmp" && sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp; fi sudo chown -R $USER /mnt/tmp unpackDir=/mnt/tmp; break 2;; [qQ]*) exit 0 ;; *) continue ;; esac done } chooseLoc2 () { cd $Browse while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Choose where to unpack the archive, or use /mnt/tmp. \n\n 1. Find a directory in user home 2. Find a directory on another partition (/media) 3. Use /mnt/tmp q quit \n\n\t" read ans case $ans in 1) Browse=$HOME; chooseDir; break 2;; 2) Browse=/media; chooseDir; break 2;; 3) if [[ ! -e /mnt/tmp ]]; then printf "Creating /mnt/tmp" && sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp; fi sudo chown -R $USER /mnt/tmp unpackDir=/mnt/tmp; break 2;; [qQ]*) exit 0 ;; *) continue ;; esac done } chooseDir () { cd $Browse while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Select a directory! ../ to enter parent directory... m and Enter to make a new directory at present.\n\tPress C and Enter when correct.\n\n\n" ls -dhl --color=auto "$(pwd)" IFS=$'\n' COLUMNS=1 PS3="Enter choice:" options=(../ $(ls -dhl */ 2>/dev/null)) select dir in "${options[@]}"; do case $dir in ../) cd .. && break ;; *) if [[ "$REPLY" == [cC] ]]; then break 2 elif [[ "$REPLY" == [mM] ]]; then read -p "Enter new directory name: " newdir; sudo mkdir "$(pwd)/$newdir"; cd $newdir; break elif [[ "$dir" ]]; then dirname=$(echo "$dir" | awk '{print $9}') cd "$dirname"; break else break; fi ;; esac done done unpackDir="$(pwd)" } #===================================Unpack commands #sys restore $Task=Rsys using /dev/$opt ---- home and dir restore both using same $unpackDir unpackFile () { if [[ $Task == Rsys ]]; then if [[ $Archtype == FSA ]]; then sudo fsarchiver restfs -vo -j 14 $File id=0,dest=/dev/$opt,mkfs=ext4 sudo mount /dev/$opt /mnt/$opt && printf "\n\n\t/dev/$opt mounted to /mnt/$opt\n\n" else sudo tar $TARoption $File -C /mnt/tmp; fi else if [[ $Archtype == FSA ]]; then sudo fsarchiver restfs -j 14 $File $unpackDir else tar $TARoption $File -C $unpackDir; fi fi } taskConfirm () { while true; do clear printf '\n%.0s' {1..10}; printf "\tBACKUP BEAST RESTORE.......\n\n Task is set to.....\n\n Archive: $File \n\n\tTarget: $Targ$unpackDir\n\n Hit Enter to proceed! Or type C and Enter to abort!\n" read ans case $ans in "") unpackFile; break 2 ;; [cC]*) exit 0 ;; *) break ;; esac done } #===================================Start chooseTask