Introduction

Nobody cares about backups until they need them, and nobody makes backups unless forced. Therefore, making backups needs to be automated. With advances in disk drive technology, it's simplest to add a new drive or use the cloud for backups, rather than backing up to a tape drive. Even with cheap drives or cloud storage, backup data should be compressed to reduce storage needs and transfer time. Data should be encrypted before it's stored on the cloud. Data is usually archived and compressed before encrypting. Many standard encryption programs can be automated with shell scripts. This chapter's recipes describe creating and maintaining files or folder archives, compression formats, and encrypting techniques.