Backing up via GitHub repo

arnedebeer

@bhepler Would it then still be possible to update the MagicMirror? I figure it would be, but just to be sure. Do you think this is the best way to backup my MagicMirror setup?

Thanks for your response!

sdetweil

@arnedebeer you can, but private repo is not free

i backup the MM folder to my PC, then delete the node_modules folders where I find them
and then zip the thing onto an external drive, that is backed up to the cloud.

so I have 3 layers of backup, pc, external disk and cloud

i have 2 external drives, 5 and 8 terabytes. and sometime copy from one to another for another layer.

on my pc, I run two 4tb drives in raid 0, so if one dies, I can get the data back
I do my cloud back ups with backblaze, as it does continuous incremental backups…

on my critical mirror devices, I have gone to booting the sd card, but running from SSD disk.
so the sd card usage is minimal.

arnedebeer

@sdetweil a private repo on GitHub is free though!

sdetweil

@arnedebeer well, then, didn’t used to be… I see its changed… thanks…

arnedebeer

@sdetweil perhaps your four layer backup routine isn’t needed after all!:winking_face:

bhepler

In all honesty I don’t think it’s necessary to back up your entire Magic Mirror. If you back up the config.js file, you can rebuild your mirror pretty quickly. It will contain all of your API keys and a list of the modules you have installed. The hard part will be locating the Github repos to clone the repositories.

And you did star all of the module repositories you need, right? That would put them all on a very convenient web page.

sdetweil

@arnedebeer well, there is a LOT of stuff on this machine… lots more than MM…

arnedebeer

@bhepler I think you’re quite right to be honest. But by forking the entire project this won’t be possible, that’s why I was hoping it was possible to create a repo for it to automate the backup.

Perhaps a better way to back my config up is to create a script that mails the config every x amount of time to myself :thinking_face: :thinking_face:

bhepler

@arnedebeer - If you must. I make it a practice that I back up the config.js just before I modify it. That way I don’t have a dozen identical copies of the file sitting around. It also lets me easily see when was the last time I changed the mirror.

BitVise is good for this, as it will open a terminal window and an SCP window, which serves as a good reminder to copy the config file down before I do anything.

karsten13

you can do that with a git repo which is located above your MagicMirror git repo.

If you have a path structure e.g. ~/mm/MagicMirror where MagicMirror contains the MagicMirror-git-repo goto ~/mm and create a new git repo there with git init. Create a .gitignore file in ~/mm and put the line MagicMirror in it so this subdir is ignored.

Now you can add files or directories with

git add -f MagicMirror/config/config.js
git add -f MagicMirror/modules/*

Then commit.