(pseudo) incremental backup with different exclude lists using hardlinks and rsync
ccollect is a backup utitily written in the sh-scripting language. It does not depend on a specific shell, only /bin/sh needs to be bourne shell compatibel (like dash, zsh or bash).
While thinking about the design of ccollect, I thought about enabling backup to remote hosts. Though this sounds like a nice feature (Backup my notebook to the server now.), it is in my opinion a bad idea to backup to a remote host, because you have to open security at your backup host. Think of the following situation: You backup your farm of webservers to a backup host somewhere else. One of your webservers gets compromised, then your backup server will be compromised, too. Think of it the other way round: The backup server (now behind a firewall using NAT and strong firewall rules) connects to the webservers and pulls the data to it. If someone gets access to the webserver, the person will perhaps not even see your machine. If he/she sees that there are connections from a host to the compromised machine, he/she will not be able to login to the backup machine. All other backups are still secure.
For the installation, you need at least - either cp and chmod or install - for more comfort: 'make - for rebuilding the generated documentation: additionally asciidoc
bc
cp with support for hard links (cp -al)
rsync
ssh (if you want to use rsync over ssh, which is recommened for security)
Either type make install or simply copy it to a directory in your $PATH and execute chmod 0755 /path/to/ccollect.sh.
ccollect looks for its configuration in /etc/ccollect or, if set, in the directory specified by the variable $CCOLLECT_CONF (use CCOLLECT_CONF=/your/config/dir ccollect.sh on the shell).
When you start ccollect, you have either to specify which intervall to backup (daily, weekly, yearly; you can specify the names yourself, see below).
The intervall is used to specify how many backups to keep.
There are also some self explaining parameters you can pass to ccollect, simply use "ccollect.sh —help" for info.
The general configuration can be found below $CCOLLECT_CONF/defaults or /etc/ccollect/defaults. All options specified here are generally valid for all source definitions. Though the values can be overwritten in the source configuration.
All configuration entries are plain-text (use UTF-8 if you use non ASCII characters) files.
The intervall definition can be found below $CCOLLECT_CONF/defaults/intervalls/ or /etc/ccollect/defaults/intervalls. Every file below this directory specifies an intervall. The name of the file is the name of the intervall: intervalls/<intervall name>.
The content of this file should be a single line containing a number. This number defines how many versions of this intervall to keep.
Example:
[10:23] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% ls -l conf/defaults/intervalls/ insgesamt 12 -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 3 2005-12-08 10:24 daily -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 3 2005-12-08 11:36 monthly -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 2 2005-12-08 11:36 weekly [10:23] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/defaults/intervalls/* 28 12 4
This means to keep 28 daily backups, 12 monthly backups and 4 weekly.
Each source configuration exists below $CCOLLECT_CONF/sources/$name or /etc/ccollect/sources/$name.
The name you choose for the subdirectory describes the source.
Each source has at least the following files:
source (a text file containing the rsync compatible path to backup)
destination (a link to the directory we should backup to)
Additionally a source may have the following files:
verbose whether to be verbose (passes -v to rsync)
exclude exclude list for rsync. One exclude specification on each line.
`rsync_options' extra options to pass to rsync
Example:
[10:47] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% ls -l conf/sources/testsource2 insgesamt 12 lrwxrwxrwx 1 nico users 20 2005-11-17 16:44 destination -> /home/nico/backupdir -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 62 2005-12-07 17:43 exclude drwxr-xr-x 2 nico users 4096 2005-12-07 17:38 intervalls -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 15 2005-11-17 16:44 source [10:47] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/testsource2/exclude openvpn-2.0.1.tar.gz nicht_reinnehmen etwas mit leerzeichenli [10:47] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% ls -l conf/sources/testsource2/intervalls insgesamt 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 2 2005-12-07 17:38 daily [10:48] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/testsource2/intervalls/daily 5 [10:48] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/testsource2/source /home/nico/vpn
source describes a rsync compatible source (one line only).
For instance backup_user@foreign_host:/home/server/video. To use the rsync protocol without the ssh-tunnel, use rsync::USER@HOST/SRC. For more information have a look at rsync(1).
verbose tells ccollect that the log should contain verbose messages.
If this file exists in the source specification -v will be passed to rsync.
Example:
[11:35] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% touch conf/sources/testsource1/verbose
exclude specifies a list of paths to exclude. The entries are new line (\n) seperated.
Example:
[11:35] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/testsource2/exclude openvpn-2.0.1.tar.gz nicht_reinnehmen etwas mit leerzeichenli something with spaces is not a problem
destination must be a link to the destination directory.
Example:
[11:36] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% ls -l conf/sources/testsource2/destination lrwxrwxrwx 1 nico users 20 2005-11-17 16:44 conf/sources/testsource2/destination -> /home/nico/backupdir
When you create a subdirectory intervalls/ within your source configuration directory, you can specify individiual intervalls for this specific source. Each file below this directory describes an intervall.
Example:
[11:37] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% ls -l conf/sources/testsource2/intervalls/ insgesamt 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 2 2005-12-07 17:38 daily -rw-r--r-- 1 nico users 3 2005-12-14 11:33 yearly [11:37] zaphodbeeblebrox:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/testsource2/intervalls/* 5 20
When you create the file rsync_options below your source configuration, all the parameters found in this file will be passed to rsync. This way you can pass additional options to rsync. For instance you can tell rsync to show progress ("—progress") or which -password-file ("—password-file") to use for automatic backup over the rsync-protocol.
Example:
[23:42] hydrogenium:ccollect-0.2% cat conf/sources/test_rsync/rsync_options --password-file=/home/user/backup/protected_password_file
When you have a computer with little computing power, it may be useful to use rsync without ssh, directly using the rsync protocol (specify user@host::share in source). You may wish to use rsync_options to specify a password file to use for automatic backup.
Example:
backup:~# cat /etc/ccollect/sources/sample.backup.host.org/source backup@webserver::backup-share backup:~# cat /etc/ccollect/sources/sample.backup.host.org/rsync_options --password-file=/etc/ccollect/sources/sample.backup.host.org/rsync_password backup:~# cat /etc/ccollect/sources/sample.backup.host.org/rsync_password this_is_the_rsync_password
This hint was reported by Daniel Aubry.
When you exclude "/proc" or "/mnt" from your backup, you may run into trouble when you restore your backup. When you use "/proc/*" or "/mnt/*" instead ccollect will backup empty directories.
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Note
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When those directories contain hidden files (those beginning with a dot (.)), they will still be transferred! |
This hint was reported by Marcus Wagner.
If you used rsync directly before you use ccollect, you can use this old backup as initial backup for ccollect: You simply move it into a subdirectory named "intervall.0".
Example:
backup:/home/backup/web1# ls bin dev etc initrd lost+found mnt root srv usr vmlinuz boot doc home lib media opt sbin tmp var vmlinuz.old backup:/home/backup/web1# mkdir daily.0 # ignore error about copying to itself backup:/home/backup/web1# mv * daily.0 2>/dev/null backup:/home/backup/web1# ls daily.0
Now you could use /home/backup/web1 as the destination for the backup.
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Note
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Do not name the first backup something like "daily.initial", but use the "0" (or some very low number, at least lower than the current year) as extension. ccollect uses sort to find the latest backup. ccollect itself uses intervall.YEAR-MONTH-DAY-HOUR:MINUTE.PID. This notation will always be before "daily.initial", as numbers are earlier in the list which is produced by sort. So, if you have a directory named "daily.initial", ccollect will always diff against this backup and transfer and delete files which where deleted in previous backups. This means you simply waste resources, but your backup will be complete. |
Let us assume, that one backup failed (connection broke or hard disk had some failures). So we've one backup in our history, which is incomplete.
The next time you use ccollect, it will transfer the missing files
srwali01:~# mkdir /etc/ccollect srwali01:~# mkdir -p /etc/ccollect/defaults/intervalls/ srwali01:~# echo 28 > /etc/ccollect/defaults/intervalls/taeglich srwali01:~# echo 52 > /etc/ccollect/defaults/intervalls/woechentlich srwali01:~# cd /etc/ccollect/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect# mkdir sources srwali01:/etc/ccollect# cd sources/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# ls srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# mkdir local-root srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# cd local-root/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/local-root# echo / > source srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/local-root# cat > exclude << EOF > /proc > /sys > /mnt > EOF srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/local-root# ln -s /mnt/hdbackup/local-root destination srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/local-root# mkdir /mnt/hdbackup/local-root srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/local-root# ccollect.sh taeglich local-root /o> ccollect.sh: Beginning backup using intervall taeglich /=> Beginning to backup "local-root" ... |-> 0 backup(s) already exist, keeping 28 backup(s).
After that, I added some more sources:
srwali01:~# cd /etc/ccollect/sources srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# mkdir windos-wl6 srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# cd windos-wl6/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-wl6# echo /mnt/win/SYS/WL6 > source srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-wl6# ln -s /mnt/hdbackup/wl6 destination srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-wl6# mkdir /mnt/hdbackup/wl6 srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-wl6# cd .. srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# mkdir windos-daten srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-daten# echo /mnt/win/Daten > source srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-daten# ln -s /mnt/hdbackup/windos-daten destination srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-daten# mkdir /mnt/hdbackup/windos-daten # Now add some remote source srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/windos-daten# cd .. srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# mkdir srwali03 srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# cd srwali03/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/srwali03# cat > exclude << EOF > /proc > /sys > /mnt > /home > EOF srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/srwali03# echo 'root@10.103.2.3:/' > source srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/srwali03# ln -s /mnt/hdbackup/srwali03 destination srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources/srwali03# mkdir /mnt/hdbackup/srwali03
[10:53] srsyg01:sources% du -sh ~/backupdir 4.6M /home/nico/backupdir [10:53] srsyg01:sources% du -sh ~/backupdir/* 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:52.28456 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:53.28484 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:53.28507 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:53.28531 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:53.28554 4.1M /home/nico/backupdir/daily.2005-12-08-10:53.28577 srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# du -sh /mnt/hdbackup/wl6/ 186M /mnt/hdbackup/wl6/ srwali01:/etc/ccollect/sources# du -sh /mnt/hdbackup/wl6/* 147M /mnt/hdbackup/wl6/taeglich.2005-12-08-14:42.312 147M /mnt/hdbackup/wl6/taeglich.2005-12-08-14:45.588