Probando el plugin para sincronizar Obsidian Android y App portable Windows con mi nube de Koofr -> 😍

#obsidian #Koofr

TL;DR

Backuping Moodle1 server to external location requires some gymnastics and the setup is not straight forward. There are plugins that can backup using FTP2, but I didn’t explore them.

What I wanted to accomplish was 1. firstly, moving course backups out of Moodle’s strange file structure and 2. backuping them to external server (Koofr via rclone). Simply put:

Moodle filearea –> /var/backups –rclone–> Koofr

Courses backup is the second backup strategy I’m using. The first one is a daily backup of a virtual server from a proxmox host to NAS via NFS.

1. Set Moodle’s automated backup location (same server)

Firstly, I had to convince Moodle to store backups of courses in my folder.

Moodle -> Site Admin / Courses / Backup / Automated backup setup

Automated backup storage setting is set to Course backup filearea by default. Moodle’s filearea is accessible (in /moodledata/), but the naming of folders and files is … unfriendly to put it mildly and I can’t make any of it. Take a look:

I wanted to change it to ‘Course backup filearea and the specified directory‘. But I couldn’t, because my Moodle install does not allow manually setting paths from admin UI (it’s a security setting). I didn’t want to circumvent it ($CFG->preventexecpath = true; in config.php).

So I had to set the backup path in Moodle’s config.php. Firstly, I couldn’t find how to set it, then I found it in one forum post3.

But firstly, I created a directory where I want my backups and allowed that user www-data (apache server) can write to it:

Then I modified Moodle’s config.php and added the location4:

Went back to Moodle’s admin UI, refreshed and I could see the backup location:

Finally I could set Automated backup storage to Course backup filearea and the specified directory.

2. Backup to remote location using rclone and Koofr5

Now that I convinced Moodle to spit out backups of courses to the location I wanted, I proceeded with:

1. Install and configure rclone (a program to copy/sync files to variety of cloud services)

To configure rclone, I just followed these instructions.

2. I made a new folder in my Koofr for Moodle backups and tested the connection:

List Koofr dirs:

Test copying from local folder to Koofr:

I used ‘rclone copy’ instead of ‘sync’, because I want copies: if something happens to backups on Moodle server (e. g. get corrupted, compromised or deleted), I don’t wont this to propagate to backup on Koofr.

3. Lastly, I created a cron job that runs rclone every morning at 6AM6 and writes to a log about it:

In the morning I checked the Koofr’s Backup folder and … voila, backups are there.

Now I have another piece of mind in case anything goes wrong.

De flesta förvarar eller säkerhetskopierar säkerligen sina bilder på iCloud, Google Photos eller Microsoft Onedrive. En del kanske använder Flickr eller nån annan sajt. Samtliga de nämnda sajterna ägs av US-amerikanska företag och alla förutom Flickr ägs av ett av de 5 stora IT-företagen.

TL;DR

I fell for a strange pattern of techy computer users to describe / brag about reducing their dependance of IT services owned by US-based tech giants and other companies that embraced enshittification principles.

I didn’t invented nothing new, I just made some small steps towards better control of my data and IT equipment.

IT usage is very political imho. With the recent imperialistic developments and sharp drop in human rights in US, I feel uneasy about using their platforms (Microsoft, Google, social media). This is one of the reasons I’m trying to move away from them and towards FOSS & non-enshittified companies. The other reason is curiosity for exploring new things.

But even selecting FOSS/sustainable IT alternatives is not trivial. They usually lack polished UI, and … ugh, … sometimes there is quite some drama associated with them (e. g. main developer adopts techbro mentality).

OS

As I wrote extensively, I transitioned from Windows to Linux Mint as a daily driver in March 2025.

It’s pretty boring – Mint works, it didn’t crash beyond repair (yet), I don’t think about it anymore.

Now is Dec. and I still haven’t booted to Windows partition. It’s time to delete it and dedicate space for something else.

Browser

Firefox, but looking for alternatives. Mozilla is not my favourite company anymore because of their efforts to stick genAI into the browser and dismissing the community. Yes, I still wear their t-shirt from 2004 and probably will until it disintegrates.

Office

I cancelled to M356 subscriptions for my company and left only 1 license for special cases (spreadsheets with macros for reporting to EU and similar).

Firstly I used OpenOffice in 2003-2006 when I wrote my dissertation and MsWord started to crash after 100 pages. At that time, OpenOffice saved a lot of time, because it handled formulas and references really well. Then I stopped using it until last year. Now it’s my daily driver (Libre Office) again alongside Google Docs (yeah, I know).

I made a promise that all documents that I send out to other people will be in .odt format. In last several months I received in total 0 complaints. Even people with MSOffice can open it and probably they don’t even notice the change of the format.

I especially like (not so well known): Libre Draw for editing PDFs, Libre Write for creating ePUBs.

I also installed NextCloud and it’s NextCloud Office on my selfhosted Yuno, but I haven’t used it much yet. It looks promising, but more complex in comparison with Google Docs.

Email

I bought Tuta subscription and connected it with my domain. I’m using Linux desktop app, mobile app alongside Gmail.

I haven’t transitioned from GMail yet. I gave my new email address only to some specific people and I’m trying to keep it away from various online subsctiptions. I still use GMail, where all the junk goes.

Probably I will keep using GMail as a throw away email account and Tuta for things I care about – such as communication with state institutions, health institutions, friends.

I’m still trying to get used to Tuta UI.

I could even recreate my workflow from GMail to Tuta: Starred emails. In GMail, I star emails that need my further attention. In Tuta, I use labels for the same purpose. I created a new label ‘todo’ which I can apply to the email. It needs some more clicks than starring emails in GMail, which is not optimal, but it’s good enough.

Calendar

I still don’t know how to transfer my calendar from Google Calendar to something else, e. g. Tuta Calendar. I use Google Calendar with 10+ calendars, intervowen with my family’s calendars. Will try to figure it out in 2026.

Cloud storage

This one is the most difficult one.

But I started to ween off Google Drive, which I use from its beginnings. Until now I haven’t found a good replacement, especially for Google Docs.

Lately I bought a lifetime Koofr subscription for 1 TB. I’m using it as a (3rd) backup for all of my family’s photos and videos. It backups my NAS via WebDAV and my desktop via rclone. I also sync my media from the phone to Koofr. Maybe I’ll even use it instead Google Photos. Will see – but at the first glance it doesn’t miss much – maybe albums and search by photo description.

Koofr looks promising and most importantly, it’s based in EU.