Tag: filesystem

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How to mount exFAT (used in SDcard / USB Drive) filesystem in Ubuntu

exFAT is a filesystem developed by Microsoft for use in flash drives or portable storage devices where the use of NTFS is not feasible. exFAT is inteded to be supported on consumer devices such as MP3 players, cameras, mobile phones and video recorders.

However filesystem formatted with exFAT are not currently supported by Ubuntu (as of 12.04) out from the box. In order to do that, you need to download exFAT filesystem module from relan PPA.

1. Add exFAT PPA repository

[bash]
sudo -s
apt-add-repository ppa:relan/exfat
[/bash]

2. Update apt-get repository
[bash]
apt-get update
[/bash]

3. Install exfat modules
[bash]
apt-get install fuse-exfat
[/bash]

That’s it you’re done! Then you can finally mounts exFAT filesystem using the following command….

4. mounting exFAT filesystem
[bash][/bash]
mount -t exfat /dev/sdd /media
[bash][/bash]

You should be able to mount exFAT filesystem from now on… the fuse-exfat also comes with ‘exfat-utils‘ package which enables the creation, checking and labelling exFAT filesystem.

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How to back up files periodically using rsnapshot and NFS in Ubuntu Linux

rsnapshot is a utility that uses rsync to synchronize files between two directories. rsnapshot makes it easier for system admin to backup crucial system data files regularly with minimal bandwidth and effort.

This guide assumes that you’ve already installed nfs-client and rsnapshot via “apt-get” utility in your Debian/Ubuntu Linux system.

Assumptions:
The backup server is connected in the same LAN as the main computer. The backup server is mounted as NFS on the main computer, ip address of the backup server is 192.168.1.100.

Step 1: Create a script to mount backup server filesystem
This is to ensure that the backup server is available at least hourly (or daily, depending on your requirements), save the file as “mount-backup-server.sh”

File content:

#!/usr/bin/bash
# mount-backup-server.sh
mount 192.168.1.100:/backup-point/  /media/backup/

Step 2: Ensure the mount script is run hourly

sudo cp mount-backup-server.sh /etc/cron.hourly
sudo chmod a+x /etc/cron.hourly/mount-backup-server.sh

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Linux: How to get Harddisk UUID number

Modern Linux system uses UUID instead of traditional block name (/dev/hda1, /dev/hda5, /dev/sdb) to uniquely identify harddisk or other storage medium. This is because UUID is unique and never changes even if you switch the harddisk ordering.

So by mounting or refering your hard disk by its UUID, you are guaranteed to mount the correct storage medium no matter where its connected on your system.

Here’s how to get your harddisk UUID number

Method 1: Ubuntu and Debian Way

sudo vol_id /dev/hda1

This command display harddisk extra information including its filesystem and uuid number.

Method 2: using /dev/disk/by-uuid/

Another method which works universally on modern GNU Linux operating system is :

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

which will uuid of connected storage medium to your computer.

That’s all, now you can easily identify your storage disk UUID number without much problem anymore.