MajorLinux
6592eb4fea
- Fixed 4 broken markdown links (bad relative paths in See Also sections) - Corrected n8n port binding to 127.0.0.1:5678 (matches actual deployment) - Updated SnapRAID article with actual majorhome paths (/majorRAID, disk1-3) - Converted 67 Obsidian wikilinks to relative markdown links or plain text - Added YAML frontmatter to 35 articles missing it entirely - Completed frontmatter on 8 articles with missing fields Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
87 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
87 lines
2.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: WSL2 Backup via PowerShell Scheduled Task
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domain: linux
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category: distro-specific
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tags:
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- wsl2
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- windows
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- backup
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- powershell
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- majorrig
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status: published
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created: '2026-03-16'
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updated: '2026-03-16'
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---
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# WSL2 Backup via PowerShell Scheduled Task
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WSL2 distributions are stored as a VHDX file on disk. Unlike traditional VMs, there's no built-in snapshot or backup mechanism. This article covers a simple weekly backup strategy using `wsl --export` and a PowerShell scheduled task.
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## The Short Answer
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Save this as `C:\Users\majli\Scripts\backup-wsl.ps1` and register it as a weekly scheduled task.
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## Backup Script
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```powershell
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$BackupDir = "D:\WSL\Backups"
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$Date = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd"
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$BackupFile = "$BackupDir\FedoraLinux-43-$Date.tar"
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$MaxBackups = 3
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New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $BackupDir | Out-Null
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# Must shut down WSL first — export fails if VHDX is locked
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Write-Host "Shutting down WSL2..."
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wsl --shutdown
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Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
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Write-Host "Backing up FedoraLinux-43 to $BackupFile..."
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wsl --export FedoraLinux-43 $BackupFile
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if ($LASTEXITCODE -eq 0) {
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Write-Host "Backup complete: $BackupFile"
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Get-ChildItem "$BackupDir\FedoraLinux-43-*.tar" |
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Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending |
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Select-Object -Skip $MaxBackups |
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Remove-Item -Force
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Write-Host "Cleanup done. Keeping last $MaxBackups backups."
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} else {
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Write-Host "ERROR: Backup failed!"
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}
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```
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## Register the Scheduled Task
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Run in PowerShell as Administrator:
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```powershell
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$Action = New-ScheduledTaskAction -Execute "PowerShell.exe" `
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-Argument "-NonInteractive -File C:\Users\majli\Scripts\backup-wsl.ps1"
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$Trigger = New-ScheduledTaskTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Sunday -At 2am
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$Settings = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet -StartWhenAvailable -RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable:$false
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Register-ScheduledTask -TaskName "WSL2 Backup - FedoraLinux43" `
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-Action $Action -Trigger $Trigger -Settings $Settings `
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-RunLevel Highest -Force
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```
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## Restore from Backup
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```powershell
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wsl --unregister FedoraLinux-43
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wsl --import FedoraLinux-43 D:\WSL\Fedora43 D:\WSL\Backups\FedoraLinux-43-YYYY-MM-DD.tar
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```
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Then fix the default user — after import WSL resets to root. See [WSL2 Instance Migration](wsl2-instance-migration-fedora43.md) for the `/etc/wsl.conf` fix.
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## Gotchas
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- **`wsl --export` fails with `ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION` if WSL is running.** The script includes `wsl --shutdown` before export to handle this. Any active WSL sessions will be terminated — schedule the task for a time when WSL is idle (2am works well).
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- **Backblaze picks up D:\WSL\Backups\ automatically** if D: drive is in scope — provides offsite backup without extra config.
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- **Each backup tar is ~500MB–1GB** depending on what's installed. Keep MaxBackups at 3 to balance retention vs disk usage.
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## See Also
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- [WSL2 Instance Migration](wsl2-instance-migration-fedora43.md)
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- [WSL2 Training Environment Rebuild](wsl2-rebuild-fedora43-training-env.md)
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