sbackup without GUI

I recently wanted to install and run sbackup without using the GUI interface (this was on my mythbuntu system and I didn't want to interrupt my show). Not that the sbackup package unfortunately requires X11 and Gnome, so you can't use it on a lean server system.

Start by installing it:

# apt-get install sbackup

The configuration is in /etc/sbackup.conf, edit this file. Basically you want to set your target and then under [dirconfig] set what paths you want backed up.

# cp /etc/sbackup.conf /etc/sbackup.conf.orig
# vi /etc/sbackup.conf
# diff /etc/sbackup.conf.orig /etc/sbackup.conf
8,9c8,9
< target=/var/backup
< #target=ssh://user:pass@example.com/home/user/backup/
---
> #target=/var/backup
> target=ssh://casey-backup@file-server/mnt/backups/casey
37,38c37,38
< /usr/local/=1
< /var/=1
---
> /usr/local/=0
> /var/=0

You can test your configuration by running /usr/sbin/sbackupd (this returns nothing for me, which apparently indicates success):

# /usr/sbin/sbackupd

Now install a cron job to run it (this one runs it every night at 12:30):

# cat /etc/cron.d/sbackup
30 12 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/sbackupd && /usr/sbin/sbackupd