Remote backup

asked 2018-07-10 03:08:17 +0300

flypig
296 ●6 ●9 ●12

http://www.flypig.co.uk/

This evening my beautiful Xperia X attacked the pavement and ended up with a cracked screen. The phone is still working (for some definition of working), but the screen just shows vertical lines making it unusable.

My plan is to transfer my configuration and data over to a new device. I can still SSH into the phone, so is there any way to trigger a backup from the command-line? Alternatively, is there any form of VNC/RDP server I could use for this? If not, is it enough to copy the contents of the home folder over?

Comments

https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/202514138-How-to-copy-data-from-Home-to-SD-card-in-Recovery-Mode-Jolla-1-?mobile_site=true

Spam Hunter ( 2018-07-10 04:50:27 +0300 )edit

rsync is your best friend

juiceme ( 2018-07-10 07:12:46 +0300 )edit

@Edz While the response might well give you a copy of some of your data, it will be by no means all of it.

As Jolla insist on the app data being installed separately from the users home folder, there will always be data loss following the approach described in your link.

One approach is to mount the phone using sshfs and then copy the required off to a safe location.

toner_cloud ( 2018-07-10 11:59:59 +0300 )edit

That's why I posted as a comment, it wasn't meant as definitive answer.

Spam Hunter ( 2018-07-10 12:58:02 +0300 )edit

@Edz, that's a useful link, thanks, and @juiceme, rsync would seem to me to be the backstop option. I was hoping it might be possible to provoke the backup utility into doing its thang. Something like vault --action export... etc. etc.'?

flypig ( 2018-07-10 13:57:23 +0300 )edit

answered 2018-07-12 02:54:09 +0300

flypig
296 ●6 ●9 ●12

http://www.flypig.co.uk/

It's clear from @juiceme's comment that there are benefits to using rsync for backup, not least it being accessible from the command-line. But I really wanted to use the Jolla-provided backup solution, hence my original question. Since I couldn't figure out the correct parameters to get vault to work from the command line, I ended up putting together a patch of the QML UI instead to allow a backup to be triggered over SSH.

The script, along with step-by-step instructions for how to use it, are up on github here:

https://github.com/llewelld/sailfish-autobackup

Hopefully this may be of use to anyone else who finds themselves in the same uncomfortable position of having a smashed screen.

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Comments

Heh, neat work! :)

juiceme ( 2018-07-12 08:31:13 +0300 )edit

Thanks. In my panic I needed to use a familiar tool, but now I'm back on track with a new phone I want to set up an rsync cron job as you described. It looks like the right solution in the longer term.

flypig ( 2018-07-12 11:47:32 +0300 )edit

Do I understand your path correctly, that you add a dbus slot to the debug ui which can be called through the command line? That's a nice idea, that's what I love with SailfishOS.

Thanks for your inspiration.

jollajo ( 2018-07-12 15:55:06 +0300 )edit

@jollajo, the dbus code is already built into settings; I stole it from an earlier question. The dbus message opens the backup screen but goes no further, so I added in a couple of QML timers as you can see here to simulate button presses to do the rest. I totally agree this ability to hack around is one of the great strengths of Sailfish!

flypig ( 2018-07-12 18:58:44 +0300 )edit

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