Automatic backup of *directories*

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:47 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

Hi everyone,

I have been searching all day long with google, in hotscripts and freshmeat, but could not find anything helpful.

I am on shared hosting, can use ssh and run cronjob.

I need a way to tar.gz one (or more) directory, every x hours.
The compressed file should have a name that reminds creation date (something like directory_2004_02_26.tar.gz), but it's not necessary. It would be good if the new file does not overwrite the old one.

I do not need to send it via mail, or upload it to a different server.
I can do it via ssh, through tar, but I do not know how to run the process "continuosly", via cron.

Any hint will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Dario

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 10:49 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

* */X * * * /path/to/tar -cvzf /path/to/storage/space/file.tar.gz /dir/to/tar

if you want to run it every 2 hours, then X == 2, X==3 for every 3 hours etc.

HTH

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 4:49 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

SfCommand wrote:

* */X * * * /path/to/tar -cvzf /path/to/storage/space/file.tar.gz /dir/to/tar

if you want to run it every 2 hours, then X == 2, X==3 for every 3 hours etc.

HTH

Thanks a lot for your help. I tired it, and it works, but not exactly as I hoped: the old file.tar.gz is overwritten by the new one.

Is there any way to keep the old file?

What I am afraid of, is that I can not download the old backup, before the new one is created.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 11:11 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

OK, here's the code:

Code:

* */X * * * /path/to/tar -cvzf /path/to/storage/space/filename-`date "+%d-%m-%y"`.tar.gz /dir/to/tar

Those are backticks (located by the 1 key)
That would give a filename of the sort
filename-28-02-04.tar.gz

Reason for edit: I found out how to do it Very Happy

Thanks to those people who helped me get the answer

Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 11:47 am (20 years, 1 month ago)

Hi SfCommand,

sorry for bothering, but it does not work Sad

(((

I changed the path of the backup file, and the directory to backup, and set up the crontab via ssh, but nothing happens.

This is my crontab entry:

Code:

* * * * * tar -cvzf /home/diludovi/public_html/php/backup/filename-`date "+%d-%m-%y"`.tar.gz /home/diludovi/public_html/tim

Any idea about what I did wrong?

If I remove the -`date "+%d-%m-%y"` part, the directory tim is correctly compressed, and the .tar.gz file is created in /php/backup directory.

Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 12:07 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. I've tried touch'ing a file using `date "+%d-%m%y` to append the date, and it creates that file ok.
However, I also tried tar'ing a directory, and although I got a number of errors, it did create the backup.
I wonder if the errors are causing it to stop working?
(Also, your cron is set to run every minute of every hour. I would've thought that was a bit often Very Happy

)

Double check that you are leaving a blank line after the cron job, in the crontab.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I think he's using cPanel so the blank line shouldn't be a problem...

Posted: Sun Feb 29, 2004 1:28 pm (20 years, 1 month ago)

Daniel and SfCommand,

thanks a lot for your replies.

I used the * * * * * on the cron, because I was changing the crontab entry, and did not want to wait... Now it changed it.

I managed to find a script that does exactly the same thing, plus it sends an email, when the process is over. But still, the back-up file is created as "backup2-29-2004.tar.gz". If I run it twice a day, I will lose the old one, that is overwritten by the new one.

Could you please take a look at this script, and tell me if there a way to hack it, in order to have the back-up file look like backup-month-day-year-hour-minute.tar.gz?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Dario

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

###############################################
##
## World Wide Backup Copywright 2001 WORLD WIDE CREATIONS www.worldwidecreations.com
##
## You are free to use this software any way you wish provided you follow the following terms:
## That you cannot use the source in any script/software you redistribute or sell in any way.
## You can NOT redistribute this software in any way.
##
## For complete licensing terms, please contact us at our website at www.worldwidecreations.com
##
## This software was created on October 4th 2001.
##
## This software is intended to create a backup file called backup.tar.gz on your server
## then the software will FTP this software anywhere you wish, providing you have
## access to the said FTP server. You can also choose NOT to FTP the backup file
## if all you wish is to use this to create a backup file.
##
## You can choose to timestamp the backups.
##
## This software was tested on a Linux platform with a GNU version of Tar
## You may need to modify the code slightly if your system will not use gzip.
##
## You can crontab this script, but you should make sure you do not set the cronjob
## too frequently as this could use up your bandwidth quickly if you set a cronjob to
## execute too often. You should test this script first without a cronjob and make sure everything is working
## correctly, before you set this up as a working backup.
##
## A weekly crontab would look something like:
##
## 0 0 * * 1 perl /path/to/backup.pl
##
## This would execute the script every Monday.
##
## Dont forget to define your Path to Perl and to CHMOD this 755.
##
## This script is not designed to run as a CGI WEB script.
## you can attempt it if you wish, but with a large backup your browser will likely
## time out. Use telnet or crontab instead.
##
## Support can be found in our forum at www.worldwidecreations.com
##
###############################################

#Path to the directory you want to be as your base directory to back up.
#All files AND directories off of this path will be archived. NO TRAILING SLASH
$basepath = "/home/diludovi/public_html/tim";

##Where you want the backup.tar.gz file to be placed (not where it will be FTP'd). NO TRAILING SLASH!
$tarpath = "/home/diludovi/public_html/php/backup";

##If you want to timestamp the filename, select this as 1, otherwise 0;
$date_yes = 1;

##If you DONT want the script to FTP this somewhere then check this 1, otherwise leave as 0
$just_back_up = 1;

#If you want the backup file deleted on the SOURCE server after FTP quits, check this as 1;
$delete_source = 0;

##FTP server
$ftpserver = "yourftpserver.com";

##FTP username
$ftpusername = "yourftpusername";

##FTP password
$ftppass = "ftppassword";

##CWD directory, in other words, when the script logs into the FTP server, where would you like the backup.tar.gz file to be placed
$cwdd = "cgi-bin";

##want to be notified of transfer status by email (sendmail required)?
$notify = 1;

#path to sendmail
$sendmail = "/usr/sbin/sendmail";

##email address:
$to = 'backup@diludovico.it';

##Who will the email address be from
$from = 'from@diludovico.it';

##############################NO MORE EDITING REQUIRED ####################################
use Net::FTP;
$hitch = ();
($day, $month, $year) = (localtime)[3,4,5];
$year = $year + 1900; $month++;
if ($date_yes) { $hitch = "$month-$day-$year"; }
print "ARCHIVING FILES\n";
@the = `tar --exclude backup$hitch.tar.gz -czf $tarpath/backup$hitch.tar.gz $basepath`;
@mat = stat("$tarpath/backup$hitch.tar.gz");
if ($mat[7] <= 0) { print "Backup didnt happen. The error returned by the system (if any) is @the\n"; &send("Backup FAILED. Tar did not backup any files. Error message returned from server (if any) is @the", "Backup FAILED"); exit; }
print "Files Archived to backup$hitch.tar.gz\nFile Size Is $mat[7] Bytes\n";
if ($just_back_up) {
&send("Backup success. Backup size $mat[7] bytes", "Backup Success");
print "Ok, files are backed up, No FTP requested. Shutting down\n";
exit;
}
print "Connecting into server\n";
if ($ftp = Net::FTP->new("$ftpserver", Debug => 0)) { print "Logging in to server\n"; } else { print "could not find server! Exiting\n"; &send("Backup FAILED. Could NOT connect to $ftpserver", "Backup FAILED"); exit; }
if ($ftp->login("$ftpusername","$ftppass")) { print "Username and Password ACCEPTED\n"; } else { print "could not log into server with Username and Password. Exiting!\n"; &send("Backup FAILED. Could NOT connect to $ftpserver with the Username And Password provided - Authentication error.", "Backup FAILED"); exit; }
if ($ftp->cwd("$cwdd")) { print "Changed to the directory without any trouble - UPLOADING\n"; } else { print "Could not change to the appropriate directory, uploading anyway\n"; }
if ($ftp->binary) { print "Changed to Binary Mode No Problem\n"; } else { print "Could not change to binmode $!\n"; exit; }
if ($ftp->put("$tarpath/backup$hitch.tar.gz")) { print "Everything appears ok with the upload\n"; } else { print "Can not upload file $!\n EXITING\n"; &send("Backup FAILED. Could NOT upload to $ftpserver. Error message returned from server is: $1", "Backup FAILED"); exit; }
$ftp->quit;
if ($delete_source) {
print "You chose to delete the source after FTP, deleting $tarpath/backup$hitch.tar.gz...";
unlink("$tarpath/backup$hitch.tar.gz") or print "COULD NOT DELETE! $!";
print "\nDeleted!\n";
}
print "File Transferred OK!\nFinished\n";
if ($notify) {
&send("Backup success. Transferred $mat[7] bytes to $ftpserver", "Backup Success");
}

sub send {
if ($notify) {
open MAIL, "|$sendmail -t" or print "Could not open Sendmail $!\n";
print MAIL "To: $to\nFrom: $from\nSubject: $_[1]\n\n$_[0]\n\n.\n";
close MAIL;
}
}