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Configuring Automatic Backups with Duplicati

Configuring Automatic Backups with Duplicati

  • August 31, 2024

In this tutorial we will go through configuring Duplicati for automated backups. 

The Duplicati installation docs can be found here: https://docs.duplicati.com/en/latest/02-installation/

The official Duplicati site can be found here: https://duplicati.com

The official Duplicati docs can be found here: https://docs.duplicati.com/en/latest/

What is Duplicati

Duplicati is a backup app / agent. It resides on the host machine and backs up data from the host machine to either a local or remote destination. It supports various standard and proprietary solutions / protocols including FTP, OpenStack Object Storage / Swift, S3, SFTP (SSH), WebDAV, Azure blob, Dropbox, Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, mega.nz, IDrive e2, Jottacloud, Box.com, and others. Duplicati also supports encrypting data via GPG and AES 256. Duplicati does not backup the entire files as a whole but rather breaks them into smaller bits called chunks and then groups those chunks together in volumes. For more info see:

Duplicati provides a web interface as well as a CLI, in this tutorial we will be using the web interface.

Configuring Automatic Backups with Duplicati

Once you have Duplicati open, select the “Add Backup” tab in the left-hand sidebar. Select “Configure a new backup” hit “next”.

Name the backup and add a description. Select the encryption type and optionally set a passphrase to protect the backup from unauthorized retrieval, hit “next”.

Select the storage type, here we have a variety of options including FTP, Local, SFTP, Google Drive, and S3, just to name a few, I selected “Local” for this tutorial. Then select the destination of the backups, you can add a username and password if authentication is needed, then be sure to test the connection. There are other settings under the “Advanced” tab that you can configure as needed.

Next we select the source data we want to backup to the destination.  There are more options and settings under the “Filters” and “Exclude” drop-downs that you can configure as needed.

Note: While the backup destination can be either local or remote, the source data (the data that you are backing up) must be on the machine on which the Duplicati agent is installed.

Next we will select which days and times to run the backup. 

In the options section we can configure the maximum volume size. You are probably fine to leave this as the default, for more info you can see: 

Then set how many backups you want to keep, I would recommend the Smart Backups option unless your scenario requires otherwise. In the Advanced dropdown there are a ton of other “Advanced” options, feel free to configure as needed!

Note: There are no “full” and “incremental” backups with Duplicati, Duplicati backups function as both, for more info see: https://docs.duplicati.com/en/latest/01-introduction/

Once you have completed configuring the backup, you can run a test backup to ensure all is working smoothly.

You should see the backup files in the backup destination. 

Note: You will not see the files as they were on the host machine, as during the backup process Duplicati chunks the files and stores them in volumes see: https://docs.duplicati.com/en/latest/appendix-a-how-the-backup-process-works/

That’s a wrap! 

Walter Miely is a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Phoenix Ignited Tech You can find him on Linkedin. This material is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 License LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The content provided here is provided AS IS, and part of, or the entirety of this content may be incorrect. Please read the entireLegal Disclaimer here.

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