How would you like to use the free 25GB online hard drive that Microsoft provides to automatically backup your data in Ubuntu ? Many online storage providers will give you free storage, but just few or no one will give you a free 25GB. Now, 25GB isn’t a small space, and using that to setup an automated backup and restore process in Ubuntu is the best way to use it.

In this brief tutorial, I’ll show you how to mount SkyDrive in Ubuntu and use Ubuntu default backup tool to automatically backup your data to SkyDrive. In the event that you lose your data on your computer, you can then go back to SkyDrive to restore that missing data.

Objectives:

• Register for SkyDrive and SME Storage online
• Map SkyDrive in Ubuntu
• Backup Ubuntu to SkyDrive automatically

To get started, register for Microsoft SkyDrive Online here.  You must also register for SME Storage here.

After registering and confirming your SME Storage account, login and click ‘Add a Cloud Provider’

Next,  select ‘SkyDrive’ from the list and click ‘Add provider’

Next, download SME Storage .zip package from here and open with Archive Manager in Ubuntu.

Then select the zipped file and click ‘Extract’

Go to the location where you extracted the file and right-click the .deb package then select ‘Open With Ubuntu Software Center’.  When Software Center opens, install the package.

After installing, press Ctrl – Alt – T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the commands below

sudo modprobe fuse

Next, run the commands below to add your user account to the fuse group

sudo usermod -a -G fuse <username>

After that, run the commands below to open fuse.conf file

sudo gedit /etc/fuse.conf

Then edit the file to look like the one below and save it. Uncomment ( # ) the line shown.

Next, go to ‘Control Gear –> Startup Applications’

Then click ‘Add’ and copy the paste the commands below into the command box.

smestorage /home/<username>/SkyDrive username:password --server=smestorage.com --ao

Replace username and password with your SME Storage account username and password. The mount location should already be created at this point.

After that, restart your computer. Go to SkyDrive mount point and if everything is setup correctly, you should see your SkyDrive content.

Finally, setup Ubuntu automatic backup job using ‘Deja Dup’ To do that, go to ‘Gear –> System Settings’ and select ‘Backup’

Next, click ‘Just show my backup settings’

Then enable automatic backup from the overview screen. Next, select ‘Storage’ and choose a Local Folder, then select your ‘SkyDrive’ account mount point and choose a folder inside to backup to.

Next, select ‘Folders’ and exclude or ignore your ‘SkyDrive’ location

Finally, run the backup job and create a password-protected backup.

That’s all. If you followed the tutorial and did everything as written, your data should be automatically backing up to SkyDrive online.

Enjoy!