A backup drive

Your files are already spread over your devices, so losing one loses nothing. A backup drive is for the day you lose them all, in a fire, say, or a burglary. It’s a whole copy of your network on a drive of its own: every file, the list of them, and your network’s keys, locked so that only you can open it.

It can stay plugged in, or be kept somewhere else, a drawer at work or a relative’s house, and plugged in now and then to bring it up to date. Unplugged, it’s away: nothing is wrong, and Iceblock reminds you after a month.

The drive is extra to your devices’ own copies. Iceblock keeps your files just as safely without it, and it never counts it as one of your devices’ disks.

Setting one up

On a computer, on the Devices tab, open My network, then Set up a backup drive… under Backup drive. The device needs Full trust, since the drive holds your network’s keys.

The drive. Choose a folder on a disk of its own: an external drive, not the disk the computer or its storage is on.
What it keeps. Everything, unless you leave some Collections off. Collections you make later go on it too.
A password. Iceblock warns you if it looks easy to guess.
The backup key. Iceblock shows 24 words, this once. Write them down, print them, or save them in your password manager, and keep them apart from the drive. Then type back the three words it asks for, to check.

Opening the drive needs both the password and the backup key. Neither is kept anywhere, on the drive or on any device. With either one lost, the drive can’t be opened, and that’s deliberate: a drive someone finds, or steals, is no use to them.

Everything is then copied to it over the next few minutes, or as your devices come in reach. Backup drive shows how far it’s got, and when it was last complete. From there you can change which Collections it keeps, change its password (with the old one and the backup key), or stop using it.

Your other devices show which device has a backup drive, and when it was last complete.

Getting everything back

Install Iceblock on a new computer. On the Devices tab, before joining any network, choose Recover from a backup drive. Choose the drive’s folder, then give the backup key’s 24 words and the password. The computer joins your network, with everything on the drive, and keeps the drive up to date as its backup drive from then on.

If any of your devices are left, each one tells you that a device recovered your network from a backup drive. If that wasn’t you, someone has the drive and both its secrets: remove that device from your network, then re-key it (My network, then Re-key the network). After a re-key, the backup drive has to be set up again, with a new password and key. What’s already on it stays, so that’s quick.

From the command line

iceblock backup-make /media/backup/iceblock
iceblock backup
iceblock recover /media/backup/iceblock

backup-make asks for the password, then shows the backup key. --exclude <Collection> leaves a Collection off; backup-exclude changes that later. backup-password changes the password, and backup-remove stops using the drive (--erase deletes what’s on it). recover runs on a fresh install and asks for the backup key and the password.