Encrypted backups using 'duplicity' on Windows via WSL
Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2021 3:16 pmLuckily, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has made it really simple to use all kinds of Linux command-line tools on Windows. One of such useful tools is an open-source backup package called duplicity. It's robust, feature-rich and can be deployed and used in just a few steps, like shown below:
Given the WSL is already installed, then by typing 'bash' in the Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe), one can enter the Linux shell, like so:
From there, 'duplicity' can be installed, like so:
And that's basically it, given the drives are already mounted under '/mnt/', one can backup e.g. 'c:\Users\john\data\' into 'd:\backup_john_data\', simply by typing:
Which prompts for a passphrase and outputs something like this:
Similarly, restoring the backup from 'c:\backup_john_data\' back to let's say 'c:\Users\john\data_restored\', is just a matter of:
Which verifies the passphrase and outputs:
Tip:
The '--volsize' parameter can be used to change the size of the produced backup file chunks (the default value is 25Mb, which might be rather small by modern standards, and produce a lot of files in the backup directory).
Given the WSL is already installed, then by typing 'bash' in the Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe), one can enter the Linux shell, like so:
C:\Users\john> bash
john@john-pc:/mnt/c/Users/john$
From there, 'duplicity' can be installed, like so:
sudo apt-get install duplicity
And that's basically it, given the drives are already mounted under '/mnt/', one can backup e.g. 'c:\Users\john\data\' into 'd:\backup_john_data\', simply by typing:
duplicity /mnt/c/Users/john/data/ file:///mnt/d/backup_john_data/
Which prompts for a passphrase and outputs something like this:
Local and Remote metadata are synchronized, no sync needed.
Last full backup date: none
GnuPG passphrase:
Retype passphrase to confirm:
No signatures found, switching to full backup.
--------------[ Backup Statistics ]--------------
StartTime 1625233987.10 (Fri Jul 2 15:53:07 2021)
EndTime 1625233987.45 (Fri Jul 2 15:53:07 2021)
ElapsedTime 0.35 (0.35 seconds)
SourceFiles 4
SourceFileSize 8566184 (8.17 MB)
NewFiles 4
NewFileSize 8566184 (8.17 MB)
DeletedFiles 0
ChangedFiles 0
ChangedFileSize 0 (0 bytes)
ChangedDeltaSize 0 (0 bytes)
DeltaEntries 4
RawDeltaSize 8565672 (8.17 MB)
TotalDestinationSizeChange 8587856 (8.19 MB)
Errors 0
-------------------------------------------------
Similarly, restoring the backup from 'c:\backup_john_data\' back to let's say 'c:\Users\john\data_restored\', is just a matter of:
duplicity restore file:///mnt/d/backup_john_data/ /mnt/c/Users/john/data_restored/
Which verifies the passphrase and outputs:
Local and Remote metadata are synchronized, no sync needed.
Last full backup date: Fri Jul 2 15:53:00 2021
GnuPG passphrase:
Tip:
The '--volsize' parameter can be used to change the size of the produced backup file chunks (the default value is 25Mb, which might be rather small by modern standards, and produce a lot of files in the backup directory).
duplicity --volsize 700 /mnt/c/Users/john/data/ file:///mnt/d/backup_john_data/