sshbackup

sshbackup is a shell script for doing incremental backups. it creates as many incremental versions of a folder as you wish for and it does that with local folders as well as with remote folders.

installation

sudo wget https://raw.github.com/beyondthewall/sshbackup/0.3/sshbackup -O /usr/bin/sshbackup
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/sshbackup

usage

"usage: sshbackup <options> source destination [versions]"
"source/destination example: [[user@]server:]/path/to/files"

"OPTIONS:"
   -h, --help                show this message"
   -v, --version             version information"

   -c, --config <file>       alternate config file [~/.sshbackup]"
   -l, --list <file>         list of sources and destinations"
   -s, --sshkey <file>       alternate sshkey [~/.ssh/id_rsa]"

scheduling

using cronjobs is the way to go. example /etc/crontab:

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO="admin@example.com"

#m h dom mon dow user  command
0 2     * * *   root    sshbackup /path/to/source /path/to/destination 5
0 3     * * *   root    sshbackup -s /path/to/sshkey -l /path/to/listfile
0 4     * * *   root    sshbackup bkpuser@server:/path/to/source /path/to/destination 30

notifications

utilize crons MAILTO directive for getting error notifications.

MAILTO=admin@example.com

automation

for automated backups configure a sshkey for the root user and configure your remote machines to trust that key.

sudo su
ssh-keygen
ssh-copy-id <remote machine>

you must add the backupuser to /etc/sudoers on your remote servers as well to make automated backups work. type:

sudo visudo #this will open /etc/sudoers in a texteditor

and add following at the end of that file:

backupuser ALL=(root)NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync

you can use a file which should have a source/destination combination each line. example listfile:

#<source> <destination> [<versions>]
david@dev.socialnerds.org:/home/david /home/david/Downloads/devhome 30
backupuser@dev.socialnerds.org:/home/gollum/ /home/david/Downloads/gollum
/home/david/something /home/david/backup 5

~/.sshbackup

an example config for default values looks like this [optional]:

#rsync options.
rsyncoptions="-pogEthrzl --numeric-ids --no-motd"
#dotglob option removes bug while rsyncing folder with no visible files in it.
remotecmd="shopt -s dotglob; /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync"
localcmd="/usr/bin/rsync"
sshkeyfile="$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa"

future features

• notification on errors (with cron for now)
• useful logging
• remote settings deployment
• bandwidth limits
• sshkey creation/management
• some kind of optional reports/stats
• install missing dependencies