FreeBSD. Backing Up Data with fsbackup

After the rm -rf / incident, I finally got concerned about daily data backups. At first I planned to write my own little shell script, but then I decided to look for a ready-made solution…

Goal

• Back up project files
• Create database dumps for the projects (MySQL)
• Upload the dumps to a remote FTP server

Tools

I chose fsbackup as the backup tool because it met our goals.

The fsbackup system was created to back up servers of various sizes to a dedicated backup server.

Installation

cd /usr/ports/sysutils/fsbackup
make install

More details on working with Ports and Packages in FreeBSD, as well as on updating the ports tree and installed packages.

Configuration

cd /usr/local/fsbackup

Create a directory for the archives

mkdir ./archive

Let’s make a backup copy and edit the configuration file

cp cfg_example server_backup.conf
vi server_backup.conf

It’s all straightforward, and in Russian, too :)
Now specify the configuration file to use in create_backup.sh

config_files="server_backup.conf"

FTP Settings

The server_backup.conf file

# Тип хранилища
$cfg_type = "remote_ftp";

# Сервер на который будет копироваться бэкап.
$cfg_remote_host = "server.remote.ru:21";

# Логин под которым будет сохранятся бэкап.
$cfg_remote_login = "backup_login";

# Директория куда должны помещаться файлы бэкапа, директория должна присутствовать.
$cfg_remote_path = "/home/backup_login/backup";

# пароль для входа по ftp.
$cfg_remote_password = "backup_password";

Specifying Directories and Files to Back Up

Find $cfg_root_path and specify the root directory relative to which the paths for placing files are defined (see __DATA__).

$cfg_root_path = "/";

Specify the directories and files to back up (the __DATA__ directive)

__DATA__

# Fsbackup
/usr/local/fsbackup
!/usr/local/fsbackup/cache
f!.core$
f!^core$
f!.o$
f!.log$

# BSD
/var/db/pkg
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf

# Users and PROJECT's
/home
/root
!/home/ftp
=!.netscape/cache/
=!.mozilla/.*/Cache/
=!.mozilla/.*/NewCache/
=!.mozilla/.*/News/
f!.*.avi$
f!.*.mpeg$
f!.*.mpg$
f!.*.mp3$

# System configuration
/etc
/var/cron/tabs
/var/spool/cron
/usr/local/etc

MySQL Backup

To back up MySQL, you need to edit ./scripts/mysql_backup.sh

Specify the username, password, and which databases we want to dump.

You also need to edit the startup file ./create_backup.sh and specify that we need a MySQL backup!

backup_mysql=1

Next, Add a Cron Entry

crontab -e
0 4 * * * /usr/local/fsbackup/create_backup.sh| mail -s"`uname -n` backup report" root

A brief cron reference and a cheat sheet.

Security!

For backup encryption, see http://www.opennet.ru/dev/fsbackup/#shi

Restoring Data

The ./scripts/fsrestore.sh script can be used to fully restore data from an incremental backup. To restore, simply edit the paths inside the script and run it.