Little Backup Box

Bash shell scripts that transforms a Raspberry Pi (or any single-board computer running a Debian-based Linux distribution) into an inexpensive, fully-automatic, pocketable photo backup device.

IMPORTANT Little Backup Box is designed to work with USB sticks as backup media. Theoretically, it's possible to make Little Backup Box work with an external hard disk, but this setup is not officially supported.

Installation

1. Create a bootable SD card with the latest version of Raspbian Lite for use with Little Backup Box.
2. Make sure that your Raspberry Pi is connected to the internet.
3. Run the following command on the Raspberry Pi: curl -sSL https://is.gd/littlebackupbox | bash

Little Backup Box supports three backup modes:

• Card backup Automatically backs up the contents of a storage card to an external storage device.
• Camera backup Transfers photos, raw files, and videos from the camera connected directly to the Raspberry Pi. The transferred files are saved in the /home/pi/BACKUP/[CAMERA MODEL] directory on the system storage card. Important Make sure that the camera is set to the MTP USB connection mode.
• Remote control Provides a simple web interface to manually choose one of the two modes described above.

During the installation, choose the desired mode from the selection dialog.

When prompted, reboot the Raspberry Pi.

Usage

The exact steps depend on the backup mode.

Card backup mode

1. Boot the Raspberry Pi
2. Plug in a backup storage device
3. Insert a storage card into a card reader and plug it into the Raspberry Pi
4. Wait till the Raspberry Pi shuts down

Note: To differentiate between different storage cards, the backup script creates a datetime-based .id file in the root of each storage card. The name of the .id file is also used as the destination backup folder on the storage device.

Camera backup mode

1. Boot the Raspberry Pi
2. Connect the camera to the Raspberry Pi
3. Turn the camera on
4. Wait till the Raspberry Pi shuts down

Remote control mode

1. Point the browser to http://[IP-ADDRESS]:8080 (replace [IP-ADDRESS] with the actual IP address of the Raspberry Pi)
2. Start the desired backup mode by pressing the appropriate button.

The remote control mode gives you access to the Device backup action that backs up the /home/pi/BACKUP folder on the Raspberry Pi to an external storage device. This can be useful when you transfer files in the camera backup mode, and later want to back up the transferred files to a external storage device.

Problems?

Please report bugs and issues in the Issues section.

Contribute

If you've found a bug or have a suggestion for improvement, open an issue in the Issues section.

To add a new feature or fix issues yourself, follow the following steps.

1. Fork the project's repository repository
2. Create a feature branch using the git checkout -b new-feature command
3. Add your new feature or fix bugs and run the git commit -am 'Add a new feature' command to commit changes
4. Push changes using the git push origin new-feature command
5. Submit a pull request

Author

Dmitri Popov dmpop@linux.com

License

The GNU General Public License version 3

Linux Photography

Little Backup Box is a part of a streamlined and automated Linux-based photographic workflow described in the Linux Photography book. The book provides step-by-step instructions on building a Raspberry Pi-based photo backup device running the Little Backup Box script. Get your copy at Google Play Store or Gumroad.