G'day - I'd like to correct a few misconceptions here, with regard to Timeshift's capabilities.
I have a machine that stores backups of other machines and I would like some method or solution to download those backups to local (either hd, nas or others), automatically and by ssh or sftp
and
For getting backups of your machine, you can use the Timeshift
[1].
and
There are three Backup Utilities that come to mind - TimeShift, Deja Dup and Back in Time
Timeshift is likely not suitable here.
1.
@zapeador - the backups of other machines are likely in a format particular to the backup solution you are using, is that so? Timeshift can only snapshot a full Linux Distribution, with the RSYNC option only able to handle EXT4. It cannot snapshot NTFS partitions and it cannot snapshot stand alone data partitions.
2. Although the RSYNC part of it has as its engine, as you might guess, rsync, it is not the full rsync that can work across a network.
An indication of this can be seen from the Settings page, as follows:
Look to the bottom, read the bulleted points carefully, and you will understand.
You can rule out ssh and sftp as well.
The video contained in one of the links
@SandeepUrankar has provided has one mistake as well.
The presenter says at one point that as the snapshot begins to be taken, Timeshift will compact your files and folders into a Timeshift format.
It does not. There is no compression, they are translated to the snapshot at 1:1. So if your source distro (including Home, if you have chosen it to be included) consumes 10 GB, the resulting snapshot will be 10 GB. Subsequent snapshots will be smaller if you choose an incremental approach.
There is no change to file format. If you lose a file later, you can browse the snapshot from within Timeshift and
copy the file that was lost. All files in the snapshot are, however, owned by Root, so if the file was from, say, Home, you may need to alter permissions after the file is copied.
Don't
move files from the snapshot, it will compromise the logfile for Timeshift used to restore.
Timeshift is not a backup utility (and Tony George does not claim it to be), it is a system restore utility.
If you have questions on how Timeshift can best be deployed on your Linux Distro, you can ask me at my Thread
https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/
Cheers
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
