Backing Up Your Robot Data

It is always a good idea to keep any customized configuration files or project source code backed up. This is especially true when upgrading your robot’s OS, as this process will wipe the robot’s internal storage.

Download the Backup Software

Clearpath Robotics provides a package containing several shell scripts to help you back up, upgrade, and/or restore your ROS Melodic robot’s important data. You can use these scripts by downloading the robot-backup repository by running the following command on your computer:

git clone https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/robot-backup

You will need to install dependencies to be able to use these scripts. The instructions for installing dependencies can be found in the README.md file of the repository, or run the following command on your computer:

sudo apt-get install sshpass sudo apt-get install rsync

Running the Backup Script

Ensure that the robot is turned on and that you can SSH into it from your computer. Then run the following from your computer:

cd robot-backup
bash backup.sh <backup-name> <robot-hostname OR robot-ip-address>

For example, if your robot’s IP address is 192.168.1.103, you would run something like:

bash backup.sh melodic-final-backup 192.168.1.103

This will produce a backup file called melodic-final-backup.tar.gz. Keep this file for when you need to restore your backed-up data, after your have upgraded your robot’s OS to Ubuntu 20.04 with ROS Noetic.

By default all Clearpath robots use the username administrator and the password clearpath. The backup.sh script will use these credentials by default, but you can override them easily.

For example, if your robot’s username and password have been set to my_robot_username and my_robot_password you should run

bash backup.sh melodic-final-backup my_robot_username@192.168.1.103 my_robot_password

Backed Up Contents

The backup script will copy the following data:

  • Home Folder: ~/

  • udev Rules: /etc/udev/rules.d

  • Network Setup: - /etc/network/interfaces - /etc/netplan - /etc/hostname - /etc/hosts

  • IP Tables: /etc/iptables

  • Bringup Files: - /etc/ros/setup.bash - /etc/ros/$ROSDISTRO/ros.d - /usr/sbin/*start - /usr/sbin/*stop

  • rosdep sources: /etc/ros/rosdep

  • rc.local File: /etc/rc.local

  • pip packages

  • systemd configuration: /etc/systemd/system

  • apt sources: /etc/apt/sources.list.d

  • apt packages

  • User Permission Groups

Backing Up Non-Standard Data

The backup.sh script assumes that your robot is in a roughly-standard configuration; it uses a single user account and no files within /opt/ros/melodic have been modified.

If this is not the case, it is the responsibility of the user to ensure that any modified files and files in other users’ home folders is backed up correctly.

A common example of this might be if you have created customized URDF files to be loaded via environment variables (e.g. JACKAL_URDF_EXTRAS) and have stored them outside any of the folders specified above, you must back these up yourself; backup.sh will not do this for you.