A set of helper scripts to automatically backup your file system. It uses Duplicity (http://duplicity.nongnu.org) to create full and incremental backups.
- An existing mount point (external harddrive, network storage, etc.)
- Duplicity (can be installed with
apt-get install duplicity) - Appropriate privileges to read all files to be backed up
- Optional: A working mail system to send status emails after a backup
Clone the repository to a location of your choice (in the following, we will assume it is /opt/backup).
Copy the default config file (/opt/backup/cfg/default) to a location of your choice (e.g. /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig) and configure the following settings:
logfile: The filename of the logfile. It should contain the date and time of each backup so you can verify if the backup was successful.backupdir: The location where the backup should be stored (e.g. /mnt/backup). Make sure the user executing the backup has write permission on this directory.exclude: A list of directories that should not be backed up. By default, directories such as /dev, /proc, etc. are excluded. Extend this list by file paths you want to exclude from the backup.keep_backups: The number of full backups that should be kept. Comment or remove this line if you want to keep all backups.email: An email address to which the status report after each backup is sent. It is disabled by default. Enabling the status email requires a working mail service on your system.
Since the goal of this backup script is to backup most of the file system, it makes sense to run it as a privileged user (i.e. root). In any case, make sure the config file is executable for the user running the backup.
/opt/backup/bin/backup config_file [ -f ]
The -f option forces the creation of a full backup.
Note: If another backup process is still running, no new backup can be created and /opt/backup/bin/backup will abort.
Example: Create a full backup with our configuration file:
/opt/backup/bin/backup /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig -f
Example: Create an incremental backup with our configuration file:
/opt/backup/bin/backup /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig
Note: If this is the first backup, a full backup will be created even without the -f option.
Use cron jobs to periodically create backups.
Example: Create a full backup on the first day of each month at 02:30 and an incremental backup every day at 03:00:
Add the following two lines to your crontab (crontab -e):
30 2 1 * * /opt/backup/bin/backup /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig -f
0 3 * * * /opt/backup/bin/backup /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig
The logfiles created with each backup, as well as the status email (if enabled), tell you if everything went smoothly or if there was a problem. A list of all files in the backup can be shown as follows:
/opt/backup/bin/list config_file time
time can be specified in the following formats:
- Current time:
now - Relative time in seconds (
s), minutes (m), hours (h), days (D), weeks (W), months (M), years (Y) (e.g.5s,12m,5h,2D,3W,1M,1Y) - Midnight (according to local time zone) at a given date:
YYYY-MM-DD(e.g.2018-02-21) - W3 time format:
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD(e.g.2018-02-21T14:30:00+01:00)
Example: Show all files in the most current backup:
/opt/backup/bin/list /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig now
Example: Show all files in the newest backup before 1 December 2017, 06:45 (UTC+1):
/opt/backup/bin/list /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2017-12-01T06:45:00+01:00
Files can be restored from any existing backup.
/opt/backup/bin/restore-single config_file time file target [ -f ]
Specify the path to the file or folder you want to restore relative to the root directory, without / (e.g. home/foo/importantdocument.txt instead of /home/foo/importantdocument.txt). The specified file or folder is retrieved from the newest backup before time and copied to the location specified in target. It is advisible to restore files into a new directory (e.g. /tmp/restore) and then move them to the correct location. If the target file already exists, duplicity will not override it. Add the -f parameter to force files to be overridden by the restored file from the backup.
Example: Restore the file /home/foo/importantdocument.txt from two days ago into /tmp/restore/importantdocument.txt:
/opt/backup/bin/restore-single /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2D home/foo/importantdocument.txt /tmp/restore/importantdocument.txt
Example: Restore the directory /home/foo from two days ago into /tmp/restore/foo:
/opt/backup/bin/restore-single /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2D home/foo /tmp/restore/foo
Example: Restore the directory /home/foo from two days ago directly into /home/foo:
/opt/backup/bin/restore-single /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2D home/foo /home/foo -f
Note: This will override any existing files inside /home/foo.
Similar to the recovery of single files, you can also choose to restore all files from an existing backup.
/opt/backup/bin/restore-all config_file time target [ -f ]
Example: Restore all files from two days ago into /tmp/restore:
/opt/backup/bin/restore-all /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2D /tmp/restore
Example: Restore all files from two days ago directly to their respective location:
Attention: Directly replacing certain files from the backup may lead to errors and mess up your system. Use this option only if you know exactly what you are doing.
/opt/backup/bin/restore-all /opt/backup/cfg/myconfig 2D / -f