backatronic.sh

Easily backup relevant data in a 7-day rotation.

The idea is to initially edit the script's variables to fit your situation, then cron it to run daily. Any arbitrary files, directories, and/or MySQL databases may be included in the archive. The resulting backups will automatically rotate on a 7-day basis, without user intervention, by merit of the day of the week in their filenames.

• Multithreaded compression – Uses the blazingly-fast, multi-core friendly pbzip2 archiver by default.
• Perfect for LAMP – Will archive any files, directories and MySQL databases specified in its variables into a single archive.
• Simple operation – Requires no arguments to function and exits with error codes, so it's easy to call from cron or other scripts.
• High-compression – The default archival arguments result in a BZIP2 archive with one of the best compression ratios available.
• Set and forget – Backups automatically rotate on a 7-day basis, the newest backups overwriting the oldest.

Once the requirements are met, you simply need to place the script someplace in your path. There are two ways to accomplish this:

1. Copy and paste the code into a blank file on your system, then make it executable.
2. Download the script directly to your hard drive, then make it executable.

In either case, you will probably need root privileges first, e.g.:

 su -

…or:

sudo su -

If you will be copying and pasting the script, use your favorite text editor to create the file in question. In this example, I'll use vim:

 vim /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh

…then paste in the code on this page, save, and exit.¹⁾ Finally, make the resulting file executable:

chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh

Alternately, you could skip the text editor and just grab the file directly:

wget http://tuxhelp.org/pub/scripts/backatronic.sh -O /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh && chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh

Or the same, but with curl instead of wget:

curl http://tuxhelp.org/pub/scripts/backatronic.sh > /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh && chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/backatronic.sh

Usage is easy: just edit the variables in backatronic.sh to meet your needs, then execute the script as the user you've defined in BACKUPUSER. If the processes completes uneventfully, it will exit silently.²⁾ It's recommended to call backatronic.sh with a cron job in order to fully automate your backups.

#!/bin/bash
 
#########################################################
#     Backup relevant data in a 7-day rotation		#
#########################################################
# By Christopher A. Wadge, 09/15/2010			#
#							#
# http://tuxhelp.org/scripts/backatronic		#
#							#
# Licensed under the GPL version 3. A copy of the GPL	#
# version 3 is included with this script.  If the file, #
# COPYING, is not included, you can find the GPL 	#
# version 3 at the following URL online:		#
#							#
# http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html		#
#########################################################
 
# This script's name:
PROGRAM_NAME="backatronic.sh"
# Date of last revision:
PROGRAM_DATE="10/26/10"
 
## VARIABLES ##
# The following are pre-determined variables that are not answered by the script.
#####
 
## Executable Paths ##
 
# Compression format (tar.'XXX', e.g. 'gz' or 'bz2'):
COMPFORMAT="bz2"
# Compression Utility to accomplish the above ('pbzip2' or 'pigz' recommended for multi-core systems):
COMPUTIL="/usr/bin/pbzip2"
 
## Directory Paths ##
 
# Where to keep our temporary files (no trailing slash):
TEMPDIR="/tmp"
# Arbitrary prefix for temporary mysql working directory:
TEMPPREFIX="mysql-temp"
# Where to put our finished archives:
BACKUPDEST="/var/backups/weekly/"
 
## Backup Variables ##
 
# Nice priority level for compression (19 to -20, 19 being the lowest):
PROCNICE="10"
# User as whom to run the archive:
BACKUPUSER="root"
# Should we backup mysql, or just files?
DOMYSQL="true"
# What to prefix the archive names with:
ARCHPREFIX="`hostname`"
# Files or directories for archival (space seperated):
FILELIST=""
# Databases for archival (one per line):
DBLIST="
 
"
# Extra Options to feed to 'mysqldump' if any;
# (e.g. username / password if you don't already
# have it stored in ~/.my.cnf):
XTRAOPTS=""
 
## !!! Attention Users: Editing below this line is not advised unless you really know what you're doing.
 
## FUNCTIONS ##
# Define each function that we will call in scripting later
#####
 
Error ()
{
	echo "[FATAL] Unfortunately we've encountered an error. Now quitting."
	Delete_Temp
	exit 1
}
 
Print_Help ()
{
	echo ""
	echo "==== $PROGRAM_NAME ($PROGRAM_DATE) ===="
	echo ""
	echo "Description:   Backup all relevant data in a 7-day rotation."
	echo ""
	echo "Usage:         Copy / Edit the script, edit relevant variables."
	echo "               If desired, reference it in a cron job."
	echo ""
	echo "Dependancies:  'bzip2' or 'gzip', 'mysqldump'"
	echo "               Optional: 'pbzip2', 'pigz'"
	echo ""
	exit 1
}
 
Sanity_Check ()
{
if [ `whoami` != "$BACKUPUSER" ]; then
  echo "[ERROR] Script must be run as $BACKUPUSER"
  Error
fi
if [ ! -e /bin/bash ] ; then
	echo "[ERROR] It doesn't appear that you have the Bourne Again SHell (aka 'BASH')!"
	echo "        The [over-hyped] 'DASH' shell is too primitive to interpret this script."
	echo "        Please use your package manager to install 'bash' and try again."
	NOTSANE=1
fi
if [ ! -e $COMPUTIL ] ; then
	echo "[ERROR] The compression utility is not in the expected location: '$COMPUTIL'"
	echo "        If none are installed, 'pigz' is quite fast: http://www.zlib.net/pigz/"
	echo "        Or if you prefer better compression, 'pbzip2': http://compression.ca/pbzip2/"
	echo "        Otherwise, you can correct the path by editing the VARIABLES section of this script."
	NOTSANE=1
fi
if [ ! -z $NOTSANE ] ; then
	echo "[ERROR] Missing dependencies prevent this script from proceeding!"
	Error
fi
}
 
Try_MySQL_Local ()
{
if [ -z "$XTRAOPTS" ] ; then
	if [ -f $HOME/.my.cnf ] ; then
		if [ `grep -c password $HOME/.my.cnf` = 1 ] ; then
			XTRAOPTS="-u`grep ^user $HOME/.my.cnf | awk -F \= '{ print $2 }' | head -1` -p`grep ^password $HOME/.my.cnf | awk -F \= '{ print $2 }' | head -1`"
		fi
	fi
fi
}
 
Create_Temp ()
{
	TEMP_PATH="$TEMPDIR/$TEMPPREFIX-`date +%F.%H%M%S`"
	mkdir -p $TEMP_PATH || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to create temp directory at $TEMP_PATH" ; Error )
	chmod 700 $TEMP_PATH || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to set secure privileges on temp directory at $TEMP_PATH" ; Delete_Temp & Error )
}
 
Delete_Temp ()
{
	rm -rf $TEMP_PATH || echo "[WARNING] Unable to delete temp directory at $TEMP_PATH"
}
 
Create_BackupDest ()
{
	if [ ! -d $BACKUPDEST ] ; then
		mkdir -p $BACKUPDEST || $( echo "[ERROR] $BACKUPDEST could not be created or is not a directory." ; Error )
		chmod 700 $BACKUPDEST || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to set secure privileges on backup destination $BACKUPDEST" ; Delete_Temp & Error )
	fi
}
 
MySQL_Dump ()
{
	for db in $DBLIST ; do
		mysqldump $XTRAOPTS $db > $TEMP_PATH/db-$db-`date +%F`.sql  || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to complete SQL dump of $db" ; Delete_Temp & Error ) ; done
}
 
Create_Archive ()
{
	if [ " $DOMYSQL " = " true " ] ; then
		nice -n $PROCNICE tar cPf $BACKUPDEST/$ARCHPREFIX-`date +%a`.tar.$COMPFORMAT \
		--use-compress-prog=$COMPUTIL $TEMP_PATH/db*.sql $FILELIST || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to create $BACKUPDEST/$ARCHPREFIX-`date +%a`.tar.$COMPFORMAT" ; Delete_Temp & Error )
	else
		nice -n $PROCNICE tar cPf $BACKUPDEST/$ARCHPREFIX-`date +%a`.tar.$COMPFORMAT \
		--use-compress-prog=$COMPUTIL $FILELIST || $( echo "[ERROR] Unable to create $BACKUPDEST/$ARCHPREFIX-`date +%a`.tar.$COMPFORMAT" ; Delete_Temp & Error )
	fi
}
 
## SCRIPTING ##
# Here's where we actually do all the work
#####
 
if [ " $@ " = " --help " ] ; then
	Print_Help
fi
Sanity_Check
if [ " $DOMYSQL " = " true " ] ; then
	Create_Temp
	Try_MySQL_Local
	MySQL_Dump
fi
Create_BackupDest
Create_Archive
if [ " $DOMYSQL " = " true " ] ; then
	Delete_Temp
fi
exit 0