Advanced backup using rsnaphot
This article describes a advanced automated remote backup scheme using the tool rsnapshot as non-root user, which is based on rsync.
rsnapshot makes a specified number of incremental backups of specified file trees from remote servers via ssh with non-user root using sudo, with help of hard links to save space on the backup medium.
The following backup scheme will login to remote user backup@remote.example.com via ssh, fetch all required files with rsync to backup.example.com host, rotate the backups on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. That means, it will keep a daily snapshot for 7 days, a weekly snapshot for 4 weeks and a monthly snapshot for 12 month. Furthermore, it uses an extra partition for the backup which will be mounted only for the time of the backup process.
Installation
Emerge
Install app-backup/rsnapshot:
root #emerge --ask app-backup/rsnapshotConfiguration
Remote server
First, we will setup remote host remote.example.com for backup. Remote host is host, which we want backup. For example, it is Gentoo server, that serves web server and MySQL database.
Backup user
All operations on remote server will be executed from non-root user. Lets create such user:
root@remote.example.com #useradd -m backupBackup user must have permissions to run rsync as root, as most of files on remote.example.com belong to root or other users. As we need to backup them, rsync requires root permissions. Lets give those permission to it:
root@remote.example.com #vim /etc/sudoersAnd add to sudoers to group backup ability to run [rsync] from root
/etc/sudoers...
# backup group can do anything
%backup ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync
...
rsync wrapper
Remote backup server backup.example.com will login to this server and execute backup@remote.example.com:~/rsync-wrappper.sh command. This wrapper requires for sudo. Lets create those dummy wrapper script
/home/backup/rsync-wrapper.sh#!/bin/sh
logger -t backup $@
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync "$@";
And give executable flag for those script
backup@remote.example.com $chmod ug+x /home/backup/rsync-wrapper.shThat all. This remote.example.com ready for remote backuping
Backup server
Backup server will connect to backup@remote.example.com server via ssh public key. All backup files will be save to /mnt/backup directory.
Backup user
SSH keys, configurations for backup will be stored in backup user backup@backup.example.com
Lets create those user and group
root@backup.example.com #useradd -m backupDirectories
All backups will be saving to /mnt/backup directory. We will create backup directory
root@backup.example.com #mkdir -p /mnt/backup
root@backup.example.com #chown backup:backup /mnt/backup
root@backup.example.com #chmod 770 /mnt/backup
SSH keys
rsnapshot will login to remote servers via ssh public keys. Lets generate private/public ssh keys for all next ssh sessions.
root@backup.example.com #sudo -i -u backupbackup@backup.example.com $ssh-keygenSave ssh keys to default path without password. After this, copy ssh key to remote server with ssh-copy-id:
backup@backup.example.com $ssh-copy-id backup@remote.example.comAnd lets recheck, that everything is file
backup@backup.example.com $ssh remote.example.comNo password should be asked and you simply login to remote.example.com
rsnapshot
Set up the rsnapshot configuration file.
rsnapshot configuration files are tab delimited. Be careful to always use tabs instead of spaces for the options.
Filetree specifications are in rsync format. See the rsync man page for details.
Default rsnapshot config file:
/etc/rsnapshot.conf# Default config version
config_version 1.2
# So the hard disk is not polluted in case the backup filesystem is not available
no_create_root 1
# Standard settings
cmd_cp /bin/cp
cmd_rm /bin/rm
cmd_rsync /usr/bin/rsync
cmd_ssh /usr/bin/ssh
link_dest 1
rsync_long_args -evaAX --numeric-ids --rsync-path=/home/backup/rsync-wrapper.sh
ssh_args -i /home/backup/.ssh/id_rsa
# For convenience, so that mount points can be taken as backup starting points
one_fs 1
# Store all backups in one directory per machine
# A useful alternative may be to create a separate directory for each interval
snapshot_root /mnt/backup/
# increments, which are kept
retain daily 7
retain weekly 4
retain monthly 12
# Exclude pattern (refer to --exclude-from from rsync man page)
exclude /dev/*
exclude /proc/*
exclude /sys/*
exclude /run/*
exclude /var/tmp/*
exclude /var/run/*
exclude /tmp/*
exclude /usr/portage/distfiles/*
exclude /lost+found
# backup of remote.example.com server
backup backup@remote.example.com:/ remote.example.com/
#backup backup@remote.example.com:/otherdir/ remote.example.com/otherdir
This files have such params:
rsync_long_args Parameters, that will directly passed to rsync command:
-especify the remote shell to use-vincrease verbosity-aarchive mode. Cause rsync to backup file owners and permissions-Aacl. This option causes rsync to update the destination extended acl attributes to be the same as the source ones-Xxattrs. This option causes rsync to update the destination extended attributes to be the same as the source onesrsync-pathExecute on remote server rsync wrapper script /home/backup/rsync-wrapper.sh
ssh_args Path to public key, that should be used for remote ssh login
snapshot_root Path to directory, where all backup files will be stored
backup specifies a container directory for the backups, usually referring to the machine (in this case, example.com).
This can be changed to any name of your choosing. The final snapshots will be saved under /mnt/backup/{daily,weekly,monthly}.[0-9]*/example.com/
exclude This directory will be excluded from backup
To check rnsnapshot configuration file for errors, run
user $rsnapshot configtestrsnapshot will always take the last daily snapshot to create the first weekly snapshot and the last weekly snapshot to create the first monthly one. It will not take the 7th daily snapshot to create the first weekly snapshot. Therefore, it is possible to keep less or more than 7 daily snapshots, but is this case the first weekly snapshot is not one week old.
cron jobs
Add cron job to run backup-ing
backup@backup.example.com $crontab -eIf you want full backup of remote system, with full backup of file owners, groups, permission, attributes, you should run rsnaphost cron jobs from root user. In other words, command below should be run from root
root@backup.example.com #crontab -e#3am each day
0 3 * * * ionice -c 3 nice -n +19 /usr/bin/rsnapshot daily
#4am each week
0 4 * * 1 ionice -c 3 nice -n +19 /usr/bin/rsnapshot weekly
#4am each month
0 4 1 * * ionice -c 3 nice -n +19 /usr/bin/rsnapshot monthly
rsnaphost jobs will run rsnapshot with minimum CPU and I/O priority.
MySQL backup
This backup configuration are workable for small non-production databases, that doesn't have too many transactions. For more advanced MySQL backup, see https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/backup-methods.html (replication or Binary Log backup)
Login to backup user:
user@backup.example.com $sudo -i -u backupCreate file .my.cnf with such content
/home/backup/.my.cnf[mysqldump]
host = localhost
port = 3306
user = backup
password = BACKUP_USER_PASSWORD
This file are used every time, when mysqldump tool will be called. Be sure, that only backup user have access to /home/backup/.my.cnf file
Create bash script mysql_dump.bash, that will for backup:
/home/backup/mysql_dump.bash#/bin/bash
/usr/bin/mysqldump --all-databases | bzip2 -c > /backup/mysql/`date +%Y.%m.%d_%H.%M.%S.sql.bz2`
Add executable flag for script:
user@backup.example.com $chmod +x /home/backup/mysql_dump.bashCreate directory /backup/mysql, that contain all MySQL backups and grand permissions:
root@backup.example.com #mkdir -p /backup/mysql
root@backup.example.com #chown backup /backup/mysql
root@backup.example.com #chmod 700 /backup/mysql
Create MySQL user backup with access to all databases (like root user, but for backup)
root@backup.example.com #mysqland type:
mysql>GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'backup'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'BACKUP_USER_PASSWORD'
Last step - create cron job, that will call mysql_dump.bash script and dump all databases. Execute from backup user
backup@backup.example.com $crontab -eand add such line (run every day at 01:00)
0 1 * * * /home/backup/mysql_dump.bash
PostgreSQL backup
To be DONE
Restoration
To restore the remote.example.com backups specified above, we would use:
root #mount /mnt/backup
root #rsync -aAX /mnt/backup/remote.example.com/monthly.0/remote.example.com/. /mnt/myroot/
root #rsync -aAX /mnt/backup/remote.example.com/weekly.0/remote.example.com/. /mnt/myroot/
root #rsync -aAX /mnt/backup/remote.example.com/daily.0/remote.example.com/. /mnt/myroot/
If backup are on remote server, rsync can be done via ssh
root #rsync -aAX root@remote.example.com/monthly.0/remote.example.com/. /where /mnt/myroot is the mount point of the fresh root filesystem. In the paths above *.0 refers to the latest increment.
MySQL
Technically, MySQL dump (created from upper section) are just bzipped text file with SQL commands to MySQL database. Those command will unzip archive, and send sql command to mysql
root #bzcat /backup/mysql/some_ziped_archive.bz2 | mysql --user=rootPossible improvements
- Use remote device for storing backups /mnt/backup - TO BE DONE
- Use encryption to crypt backups /mnt/backup - TO BE DONE