mlangbehn/abackupsystem

Please note, this system is intended for use on Linux systems. It expects that it will have access to GNU tools and may or may not work on other systems. I intend to release a version that is compatible with BSD tools at a later date.

Installation

Prior to running install.sh, you may wish to edit the configuration files (found in the Conf/ directory), as they are set to generic values--read: you want to at least look over them.

The install.sh script will setup default cronjobs (daily backup midnight, weekly backup at 3AM on Sunday, monthly backup at midnight on the first of every month, and a yearly backup on the 1st of January). If you do not wish to use these defaults, please edit the "crontab entries" section of the script. If you would prefer to manually add the cronjobs, please comment out the "Adding tools to root's crontab" section.

To install the backup system, run install.sh as root by using either:

sudo ./install.sh

or:

su
./install.sh

A Note on Backups

The included scripts are set to rotate daily, weekly, and monthly backups (only seven days, four weeks, and twelve months are ever stored). Years are not rotated. Backups are done with hard-links and rsyc so that the size and time required is kept to a minimum. That said, I recommend having at least twice the space available as you intend to backup.

It is not a best practice to use a directory or partition on the same disk or RAID that hosts your system. Ideally, your backup location would be hosted on a separate disk or RAID that is mounted locally on a directory that root has read-write permissions to and everyone else has read-only. It is also a good idea to occasionally archive backups to an external disk that is rarely used, an archival CD/DVD, or--if you're old school--a tape drive. For added resilience, store these archives off site.

Credit where credit is due. This is the culmination of years of reading and discussions with more sources than I can remember. As it would be unfair to credit an incomplete list, a BIG thank you to the community!

License

This repository has migrated from the BSD 3-Clause License to the GNU GPLv3.

Copyright (C) 2013-2017  Matthew Langbehn

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Author: Matt Langbehn Contact: [email protected]