Thomas, what the evolution-backup executable does is already said at top.
The problem is running a backup from a cronjob. This can be done taking evolution-backup as an advice what to backup, but include a few precautions inside your own (cron-) script.
If you like, find details on my site.

Evolution provides a possibility to backup and restore from the commandline.

On your system do:

locate evolution-backup

then path to evolution-backup/evolution-backup –help

you can backup by:

<path to evolution-backup executable./evolution-backup –backup

I’ve followed this thread with some interest. I have a group of users with evolution mboxes (local delivery) on a development server. Every thing is backed up on alternate disc surfaces nightly using rsync scripts.

Yet at times in the past evolution files have become scrambled and rebuilding them is not a fun job, even when the source is protected.

I’d love to automate a separate backup of evolution files using its own backup/restore service, but that would seem to rule out a cron job script when more than one user is involved. Would it be preferable to write a script derived from the discussion above, where evolution is forced stop the one time and then each user’s files modified one by one, or is it better practice to schedule a separate job for each user?

Of course, in either case, the resulting compressed backup files would themselves be backed up by the system-wide rsync jobs.

Better not to delete the old backed-up tar before making in a new one.
I also did implemented a bash script for the similar function for thunderbird, with date postfixed to the tar and used to keep last 2 backed up tar’s before removing others,and that also only when the tar for today is successfully created.
Can share that if needed.

Hello, i published the script in my blog, i just have a note to is, maybe someone has a solution. I have to note, that this way Evolution gets started after the backup is done, even if you have scheduled it to run at night. I think the intention was to start the backgroud processes that were stopped with evolution –force-shutdown. — http://blog.gnanet.net/2009/10/01/evolution-backup-angolenglish/

It works but only if the user runs it, its useless for a cron job.

You can use “/usr/lib/evolution/2.28/evolution-backup –backup evolution-backup.tgz”.

I really need to change my theme because the line break system doesnt really work.


#!/bin/bash
USERNAME=shane
BACKUP_FILE="/home/${USERNAME}/Ubuntu One/evolution-backup.tar.gz"
if [ -f "${BACKUP_FILE}" ]
then
rm "${BACKUP_FILE}"
fi
evolution --force-shutdown
rm /home/${USERNAME}/.evolution/.running
gconftool-2 --dump /apps/evolution > /home/$USERNAME/.evolution/backup-restore-gconf.xml
cd /home/${USERNAME} && tar czhf "${BACKUP_FILE}" .evolution `if [ -d .camel_certs ]; then echo .camel_certs; fi`
evolution &
disown


Revrote the script a bit, i’ll try to post it here: