(pseudo) incremental backup with different exclude lists using hardlinks and rsync

1. Introduction

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).

1.1. Why you can only backup TO localhost

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.

2. Requirements

2.1. Installing ccollect

For the installation, you need at least - either cp and chmod or install - for more comfort: 'make - for rebuilding the generated documentation: additionally asciidoc

2.2. Using ccollect

Running ccollect requires the following tools installed:

3. Installing

Either type make install or simply copy it to a directory in your $PATH and execute chmod 0755 /path/to/ccollect.sh.

4. Configuring

4.1. Runtime options

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.

4.2. General configuration

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.

4.2.1. Intervall definition

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.

4.3. Source configuration

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:

Additionally a source may have the following files:

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

4.3.1. Detailled description of "source"

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).

4.3.2. Detailled description of "verbose"

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

4.3.3. Detailled description of "exclude"

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

4.3.4. Detailled description of "destination"

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

4.3.5. Detailled description of "intervalls/"

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

4.3.6. Detailled description of "rsync_options"

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

5. Hints

5.1. Using rsync protocol without ssh

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.

5.2. Not-excluding top-level directories

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.

Note

When those directories contain hidden files (those beginning with a dot (.)), they will still be transferred!

This hint was reported by Marcus Wagner.

5.3. Re-using already created rsync-backups

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.

Note

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.

6. F.A.Q.

6.1. What happens, if one backup is broken / empty?

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

7. Examples

7.1. A backup host configuration from scratch

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

7.2. Using hard-links requires less disk space

[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