[TriLUG] restore ${HOME} howto

[Tom Roche]

A few questions about the non-backup-tool-related parts of a restore
(on a ubuntu box, if that makes a difference):

I have hostname=FOO running ubuntu lucid, on which I am user=foo. I
regularly back FOO up to an external HD using `duplicity`. FOO needs
to return home for service, which will take at least a week. My GF has
a hostname=BAR, also running ubuntu lucid, on which I am user=bar.
She'll let me use BAR while FOO is elsewhere, so I want to transfer
FOO:/home/foo to BAR:/home/bar. I'm guessing the way to do this is

0 Ensure ubuntu and duplicity are uptodate on both FOO and BAR.

1 Backup FOO:/home/foo with

foo at FOO:~$ duplicity ${HOME} file:///media/HD/FOO/home/foo

2 Restore with

bar at BAR:~$ sudo duplicity file:///media/HD/FOO/home/foo ${HOME}-restore

  (duplicity won't restore to an existing directory, which seems safe.
  I sudo to create the restore dir on /home, which has a lotta free
  space.)

3 Replace BAR:/home/bar with BAR:/home/bar-restore. Since BAR has
  sufficient space, I'm planning to do

bar at BAR:~$ sudo -i
root at BAR:/root# mv /home/bar /home/bar-backup
root at BAR:/root# mv /home/bar-restore /home/bar
root at BAR:/root# exit

I'm wondering,

a Will step 3 work as intended, or should I do something different?
  Notably, will the root shell exit to user=bar appropriately after
  having $HOME forklifted out from under it? Should I instead do this
  from a virtual console, from a recovery shell, or anything else
  besides a root shell in an xterm? Instead of exiting, should I restart
  (e.g. `shutdown -r now`)?

b Is there a better way to do step 2? `sudo` was required to avoid
  duplicity errors: latter wants to create the folder given with $2,
  and folder creation only worked as su. The only problem I noted was
  that, while my files restored with appropriate metadata (e.g.
  rights, timestamp), duplicity created symlinks owned by root.

c Is there a better tool for backup/restore to/from local disk?
  Pointers to docs are appreciated.

TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>