BackupMan¶ ↑

Homepage: github.com/mstrauss/backupman

DESCRIPTION:¶ ↑

A tool for system administrators to easily configure pull-over-SSH backups. Install it on your backup server and pull your backups over SSH from there.

BACKGROUND¶ ↑

When you have servers on the Internet or in a DMZ they are kind of “untrusted” because they are vulnerable to become hacked/cracked. It is therefore a best practice to pull backups from there instead of letting these servers push their data to the backup servers. Advantage: When doing SSH-pull you do not have to store any kind of authentication information on your “untrusted” remote servers.

FEATURES/PROBLEMS:¶ ↑

Currently these types of backups are configurable:

tar - the tar becomes compressed on the source and is streamed over SSH to the backup server; no tar files are created on the source side.
rsync - changes on the source side become synchronized in a very efficient way to a copy on the backup server; you get a 1:1 copy of your data on the backup server
mysqldump - this simply does a full dump of all your databases, compresses it and streams it over to the backup server

SYNOPSIS:¶ ↑

To run a fully configured backup configured in /etc/backup_man/somehost run

backup_man somehost

To run a backup with custom log destination (default is /var/log/backup_man.log) and with a custom configuration file path use

backup_man -l /full/path/to/logfile /full/path/to/configfile

Full synopsis:

Usage: backup_man [options] {configname | configpath}

Options are:
    -l, --logpath=PATH               Path to the log file.
                                     This can NOT be configured in the config file.
                                     Default: /var/log/backup_man.log
    -d, --debug                      Debug mode.
                                     Much output on screen and in the log file.
    -h, --help                       Show this help message.

REQUIREMENTS:¶ ↑

gems: log4r

INSTALL / CONFIGURATION ON THE BACKUP SERVER:¶ ↑

sudo gem install backup_man
remove the password from your ssh private key, e.g. do +ssh-keygen -p+

create an configuration file in /etc/backup_man, copy this example and adapt to your needs:

############################################################################

# = Global settings
# These settings are valid for all latter backup definitions

# the default destination directory; if you do not set this it defaults to
# /var/backups/backup_man
DESTDIR = "/Users/srm/Documents/Backups"

# where the lockfiles go (defaults to /var/lock/backup_man/_backupname_);
# backup_man ensures, that each backup task can only run once at a time and
# uses lockfiles for this
LOCKDIR = "#{DESTDIR}"

# ssh_app defines the call to ssh with command line parameters, e.g. if you
# want to use a special identity file; SSH_APP defaults to 'ssh'
SSH_APP='ssh -i /Users/srm/.ssh/id_rsa'

############################################################################

# = Helper variables
# These are just used in this file to ease the backup definitions

dirs_to_backup = [ "/etc", "/home", "/root", "/srv", "/var/backups",
"/var/cache/git", "/var/log", "/var/mail", "/var/rails", "/var/svn",
"/var/www" ]

############################################################################

# = Backup defintions
# Currently there are these types of backups:
# * Tar - as the name says; simple tar of a bunch of directories into a tgz
# * Rsync - rsync of a bunch of directories
# * Mysql - does a simple mysqldump of all databases
#
# == Common settings
# * backup: an array of directories to backup
# * to: the destination directory on the local machine (defaults to DESTDIR)
# * onlyif: specify a condition (as Ruby code) which is checked before the
#   actual backup run; it must evaluate true to have the backup run - see the
#   homepage for details on how to write conditions
#
Tar.new( 'akeso' ) do |b|
  b.backup  dirs_to_backup
  # in this example, this job only runs on saturdays and only if the backup
  # does not exist already
  b.onlyif  'Date.today.cwday == 6 && !exists?'
end

Rsync.new( 'akeso' ) do |b|
  b.backup  dirs_to_backup
  # rsync backups go to _DESTDIR_/rsync per default; to override use the "to"
  # setting:
  ## b.to '/var/backup/custom-rsync-destination'
end

Mysql.new( 'akeso' ) do |b|
  # in this case, we simply do not run the backup if we already have one
  b.onlyif    '!exists?'
end

CONFIGURATION TASKS ON THE REMOTES¶ ↑

configure passwordless ssh login via certificates, e.g. do a +ssh-copy-id user@remotehostname+

LICENSE:¶ ↑

Author: Markus Strauss (markus@itstrauss.eu)
License: GPLv3 (www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt)

mstrauss/backupman