Backup with rsnapshot

prepare install from backport

If the package is only in the backport, you will have to use that: Debian#Use_a_backport

install

apt-get install rsnapshot

edit, tabs instead of spaces

This is important: USE TABS BETWEEN COLUMNS!

• use tabs where the other lines indicate they use tab, spaces will not work
• if you use vim to edit rsnapshot.conf, put the following into your .exrc

:autocmd BufRead rsnapshot.conf set noexpandtab

or use

set list
set noexpandtab

and then use "tab" instead of "space" where you see tabs (^I).

prepare ssh to other servers IF NEEDED

If you want to backup other servers, you will need to connect with ssh to them. Prepare a ssh-key without password, add the public version of it to the authorized_keys of the other system's correct user and create/modify a ~/.ssh/config which allows to ssh into the other system with a simple command like

ssh server-wiki

where user, port, identity file and ServerAliveInterval are all set in the config file already.

Example:

Host *
    ServerAliveInterval 15
    IdentityFile        ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Host server-wiki
        HostName        wwww.your-super-cool-server.com
        Port            22
        User            root

Host server-games
        HostName        games.your-super-cool-2nd-server.net
        Port            1022
        User            admin

setup

• edit /etc/rsnapshot.conf
• enable cmd_cp
• enable cmd_du

cmd_du /usr/bin/du

• enable the schedule

interval    hourly  6
interval    daily   7
interval    weekly  4
interval    monthly 3

• add directories to backup

backup  /etc/       localhost/
backup  /var/www/home/  localhost/

• add script to use to generate files which you want to backup

backup_script   /root/bin/backup_my_db localhost/dbbackup/

• create the db-backup script, in this case /root/bin/backup_my_db

#!/bin/bash
mysqldump -u<USER> -p'<PASSWORD>' --all-databases   > mysql_backup.sql

• or instead of scripting, use multiple exec commands:

backup_exec ssh server-wiki "rm -rf /var/db-dump/"
backup_exec ssh server-wiki "mkdir /var/db-dump/"
backup_exec ssh server-wiki "mysqldump -uroot -p'YourPassword' wiki_1 > /var/db-dump/mysql_backup-wiki-1.sql"
backup_exec ssh server-wiki "mysqldump -uroot -p'YourPassword' wiki_2 > /var/db-dump/mysql_backup-wiki-2.sql"
backup server-wiki:/var/db-dump/ server-wiki/

And make always sure to use tabs between columns.

cronjobs

• enable the cronjobs

0 */4 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly
50 23 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot daily
40 23 * * 6 /usr/bin/rsnapshot weekly
30 23 1 * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot monthly

ssh backup of remote sites

• enable ssh at all

cmd_ssh /usr/bin/ssh

• set the parameters if you really need to, prefer ~/.ssh/config
  • there is no need to give "-F /home/backup/.ssh/config" or "-F /root/.ssh/config", it will be used automatically

ssh_args -o BatchMode=yes -p 22

• • I have mine disabled

# ssh_args 

• create an entry for the backup like

 backup  root@your-remote-host-in-config-via-ssh-key:/etc/    your-remote-host/

• install rsync at the remote host

apt-get install rsync

• make sure the remote system has the needed hostkeys

ssh-keygen -A

• give absolute full paths for "IdentityFile" in your config

check

• check the config from the shell

rsnapshot configtest

This is what I use during creation of my backup script(s):

clear;rsnapshot configtest && rsnapshot -v hourly && echo ----- && du -hcs /var/cache/rsnapshot/*