DejaDup

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 * John is a new Ubuntu user. He has been using his system for a week now, managed to sort everything out by means of getting his favorite theme set up and desktop behavior. He has also already got quite a few important email messages and some other bits of information currently stored on his Desktop. John however, is a newcomer to Ubuntu and is not aware of the fact he has to do periodic backups. After using his machine for a week, a pop up dialog appears telling him "It has been a week since you installed your computer. In order to be able to restore it to the current state if data loss occurs, it's recommended that you do a backup. Would you like to do that now". Upon confirmation, he is asked to insert blank backup media and a backup is carried out. '''TODO:''' Déjà Dup does not notify like this yet.
 * Rob wants to refresh the backup set he had previously created. He opens the backup program, and is prompted to insert his old backup media if it's rewriteable (multi-sesion CD), or blank media (CDR) if not. Then, the backup program scans for changes and additions to Rob's home directory and backs up only the files that have changed. '''TODO:''' Déjà Dup does not support optical media yet, but does incremental backups.		  * John is a new Ubuntu user. He has been using his system for a week now, managed to sort everything out by means of getting his favorite theme set up and desktop behavior. He has also already got quite a few important email messages and some other bits of information currently stored on his Desktop. John however, is a newcomer to Ubuntu and is not aware of the fact he has to do periodic backups. After using his machine for a week, a pop up dialog appears telling him "It has been a week since you installed your computer. In order to be able to restore it to the current state if data loss occurs, it's recommended that you do a backup. Would you like to do that now". Upon confirmation, he is asked to insert blank backup media and a backup is carried out. '''TODO:''' Déjà Dup does not notify like this.
 * Rob wants to refresh the backup set he had previously created. He opens the backup program, and is prompted to insert his old backup media if it's rewriteable (multi-sesion CD), or blank media (CDR) if not. Then, the backup program scans for changes and additions to Rob's home directory and backs up only the files that have changed. '''TODO:''' Déjà Dup does not support optical media, but does incremental backups.
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'''Included, but a bit ignorable as they are HUBackup-specific and written to the app, not the other way around.'''

 * Dan has been doing differential backups for some time now. To make sure new work he has done today will get backed up, he inserts his last differential backup cd. The system detects that a cd has been inserted into drive, and opens a file browser window with the file content of the CD. There is only one file on the list, which is identified by the system to be a "home-user-backup archive file", Intuitively Dan double clicks the file, and as a result the GUI of the home-user-backup appears , offering Dan to either restore his files from the differential snapshot, or update it with new and changed files. Dan confirms an update, which in return makes home-user-backup scan for new and changed files, and add those to the differential backup CD. The program also makes sure there's enough free space on the medium to store the data. If not enough room is available, then home user backup system will suggest to Dan that it would probably be a good idea to make a new full backup now.
 * Norman just replaced his HD that went bad, and installed a new one. He wants to have his system settings and personal files restored. After re-installing his system on the new hard drive, he inserts the first backup CD into drive. The system recognizes that a CD has been inserted into the CDROM drive, and opens a file browser window listing the CD content, with the backup file on the list. After double clicking the backup file, Norman is presented with the home-user-backup program restore UI, which offers him to restore his files or update the backup. When Norman chooses to restore, the home-user-backup program starts to restore files, and when it consumes all data from the first backup CD it instructs Norman to take out the inserted CD and insert the next, and likewise for each of the subsequent volumes. The same process applies if Norman inserts a differential archive CD. At the end of the restore process his system is restored complete with all of his personal settings, bookmarks, and any home folder content prior to the HD loss.
 * Maria wants to backup all her personal data to a USB hard drive. But she does not want to backup certain directories like a temp folder where she keeps stuff that she intends to delete, a vm folder holding her vmware VirtualMachines, .wine because she was just playing around with it and does not want to waste space on her USB drive. She selects directories to exclude simply by unselecting them on a directory view (optionally showing here all hidden dirs). She is happy even though the interface does only allow to deselect directories in one level because in most cases this is enough choice for her. And if she has a dir which she partly wants to backup, she simply deselects it in her general home folder backup and backs it up separately later, having the same one level choice for that specific directory. For both backup variants she still enjoys the "don't backup temp, music and video data" option which is available for both the backup home dir and backup a specific dir variant.		 See [[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HomeUserBackup#Use%20cases|original spec]] for its user stories. They're arguably ignorable as they are written specifically to fit HUBackup, not the other way around.

Summary

This specification discusses including Déjà Dup, a backup tool for non technical users, by default.

Rationale

Providing an easy-to-use backup solution that's suitable for non-expert users is important. Expert users should install and/or use a more sophisticated backup system. Part of the rationale is to tell the user exactly what he has to do, rather than leave it for him to think up a backup schema.

Prior Art

Specs

Community

User stories

(Collected from previous specs)

6.06 Spec

  • John is a new Ubuntu user. He has been using his system for a week now, managed to sort everything out by means of getting his favorite theme set up and desktop behavior. He has also already got quite a few important email messages and some other bits of information currently stored on his Desktop. John however, is a newcomer to Ubuntu and is not aware of the fact he has to do periodic backups. After using his machine for a week, a pop up dialog appears telling him "It has been a week since you installed your computer. In order to be able to restore it to the current state if data loss occurs, it's recommended that you do a backup. Would you like to do that now". Upon confirmation, he is asked to insert blank backup media and a backup is carried out. TODO: Déjà Dup does not notify like this.

  • Rob wants to refresh the backup set he had previously created. He opens the backup program, and is prompted to insert his old backup media if it's rewriteable (multi-sesion CD), or blank media (CDR) if not. Then, the backup program scans for changes and additions to Rob's home directory and backs up only the files that have changed. TODO: Déjà Dup does not support optical media, but does incremental backups.

  • Marilize is a concerned Ubuntu user. Using her machine for 3 days now, she wishes to backup her data in order to be able to restore it in case it goes bad. She goes to "System" --> "Administration" --> "Backup Now". She is then instructed to insert CD media for storing the data backup. After confirming that she has inserted a CD into the drive, all her personal data is backed up against it. When finished a pop up dialog instructs her "Please take out the CD, and label it 'Ubuntu Personal Backup data, dated 10-10-2006, 06:00am'". DONE: Déjà Dup has a "Back Up Now" feature.

6.10 Spec

See original spec for its user stories. They're arguably ignorable as they are written specifically to fit HUBackup, not the other way around.

9.04 Spec

  • Bob has an Ubuntu laptop. His hard disk died. With the recovery tool and a set of current backups he is able to restore most of his data. DONE: Déjà Dup can do this today.

  • While exploring the wonders of the command line Janet accidentally deleted her almost finished term paper. She is able to restore it. DONE: Déjà Dup can do this today.

Quick Sell

  • Déjà Dup has been a featured application from the get-go
  • It's been installed by default in Fedora 13 and up
  • It's based on command line backup tool duplicity, so that flavors (including Server) can share implementation
  • It's designed for non technical users

Room for Improvement

  • Optical Media
    • Do people really use this over external hard drives?
  • Discoverability
    • Notify after a week
    • Notify upon plugging in large external disk
  • System Backup
    • List of installed packages
    • Whole disk backup
    • In scope?
    • Is U1 already handling package list?

Design

  • See original 6.06 design for ideas

  • What are must-have criteria for an official included backup system?

Implementation

Notes from UDS

 CategorySpec 
 






        
 
            

DesktopTeam/Specs/Oneiric/DejaDup  (last edited 2011-05-18 05:58:55 by p549B3CE3)