{"id":13357,"date":"2019-04-01T22:04:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T22:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/?p=13357"},"modified":"2019-04-01T22:04:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T22:04:47","slug":"rsnapshot-rsync-based-a-local-remote-file-system-backup-utility-for-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/2019\/04\/01\/rsnapshot-rsync-based-a-local-remote-file-system-backup-utility-for-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"Rsnapshot (Rsync Based) \u2013 A Local\/Remote File System Backup Utility for Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0is an open source\u00a0local<\/strong>\u00a0\/\u00a0remote<\/strong>\u00a0filesystem backup utility was written in\u00a0Perl<\/strong>\u00a0language that advantage the power of\u00a0Rsync<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0SSH<\/strong>\u00a0program to create, scheduled incremental backups of\u00a0Linux<\/strong>\/Unix<\/strong>filesystems, while only taking up the space of one single full backup plus differences and keep those backups on\u00a0local<\/strong>\u00a0drive<\/strong>\u00a0to different\u00a0hard drive<\/strong>, an external\u00a0USB<\/strong>\u00a0stick, an\u00a0NFS mounted drive<\/a>\u00a0or simply over the network to another machine via\u00a0SSH<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Install<\/a><\/p>\n

Install Rsnapshot Backup Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This article will demonstrate how to install, setup and use\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0to create incremental\u00a0hourly<\/strong>,\u00a0daily<\/strong>,\u00a0weekly<\/strong>and\u00a0monthly<\/strong>\u00a0local backups, as well as remote backups. To perform all the steps in this article, you must be\u00a0root<\/strong>user.<\/p>\n

Step 1: Installing Rsnapshot Backup in Linux<\/h3>\n

Installation of\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0using\u00a0Yum<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0APT<\/strong>\u00a0may differs slightly, if you\u2019re using\u00a0Red Hat<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Debian<\/strong>\u00a0based distributions.<\/p>\n

On RHEL\/CentOS<\/h5>\n

First you will have to install and enable third-party repository called\u00a0EPEL<\/strong>. Please follow below link to install and enable under your\u00a0RHEL<\/strong>\/CentOS<\/strong>\u00a0systems.\u00a0Fedora<\/strong>\u00a0users don\u2019t require any special repository configurations.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Install and Enable EPEL Repository in RHEL\/CentOS 6\/5\/4<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Once you get things setup, install\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0from the command line as shown.<\/p>\n

    # yum install rsnapshot<\/pre>\n
    On Debian\/Ubuntu\/Linux Mint<\/h5>\n
    By default,\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0included in\u00a0Ubuntu<\/strong>\u2019s repositories, so you can install it using\u00a0apt-get<\/strong>\u00a0command as shown.<\/p>\n
    # apt-get install rsnapshot<\/pre>\n
    Step 2: Setting up SSH Password-less Login<\/h3>\n
    To backup remote Linux servers, your\u00a0rsnapshot backup server<\/strong>\u00a0will be able to connect through\u00a0SSH<\/strong>\u00a0without a password. To accomplish this, you will need to create an\u00a0SSH<\/strong>\u00a0public and private keys to authenticate on the\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0server. Please follow below link to generate a public and private keys on your\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0backup server.<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. Create SSH Passwordless Login Using SSH Keygen<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      Step 3: Configuring Rsnapshot<\/h3>\n
      Now you will need to edit and add some parameters to\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0configuration file. Open\u00a0rsnapshot.conf<\/strong>\u00a0file with\u00a0vi<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0nano<\/strong>\u00a0editor.<\/p>\n
      # vi \/etc\/rsnapshot.conf<\/pre>\n
      Next create a backup directory, where you want to store all your backups. In my case my backup directory location is \u201c\/data\/backup\/<\/strong>\u201d. Search for and edit the following parameter to set the backup location.<\/p>\n
      snapshot_root\t\t\t \/data\/backup\/<\/pre>\n
      Also uncomment the \u201ccmd_ssh<\/strong>\u201d line to allow to take remote backups over\u00a0SSH<\/strong>. To uncomment the line remove the \u201c#<\/strong>\u201d in-front of the following line so that\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0can securely transfer your data to a backup server.<\/p>\n
      cmd_ssh\t\t\t\/usr\/bin\/ssh<\/pre>\n
      Next, you need to decide how many old backups you would like to keep, because rsnapshot had no idea how often you want to take snapshots. You need to specify how much data to save, add intervals to keep, and how many of each.<\/p>\n
      Well, the default settings are good enough, but still I would like you to enable \u201cmonthly<\/strong>\u201d interval so that you could also have longer term backups in place. Please edit this section to look similar to below settings.<\/p>\n
      #########################################\r\n#           BACKUP INTERVALS            #\r\n# Must be unique and in ascending order #\r\n# i.e. hourly, daily, weekly, etc.      #\r\n#########################################\r\n\r\ninterval        hourly  6\r\ninterval        daily   7\r\ninterval        weekly  4\r\ninterval        monthly 3<\/pre>\n
      One more thing you need to edit is \u201cssh_args<\/strong>\u201d variable. If you have changed the default\u00a0SSH Port<\/strong>\u00a0(22<\/strong>) to something else, you need to specify that port number of your remote backing up server.<\/p>\n
      ssh_args\t\t-p 7851<\/pre>\n
      Finally, add your local and remote backup directories that you want to backup.<\/p>\n
      Backup Local Directories<\/h5>\n
      If you\u2019ve decided to backup your directories locally to the same machine, the backup entry would look like this. For example, I am taking backup of my\u00a0\/tecmint<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0\/etc<\/strong>\u00a0directories.<\/p>\n
      backup\t\t\/tecmint\/\t\tlocalhost\/\r\nbackup\t\t\/etc\/\t\t\tlocalhost\/<\/pre>\n
      Backup Remote Directories<\/h5>\n
      If you would like to backup up a remote server directories, then you need to tell the rsnapshot where the server is and which directories you want to backup. Here I am taking a backup of my remote server \u201c\/home<\/strong>\u201d directory under \u201c\/data\/backup<\/strong>\u201d directory on rsnapshot server.<\/p>\n
      backup\t\t root@example.com:\/home\/ \t\t\/data\/backup\/<\/pre>\n
      Read Also:<\/p>\n
        \n
      1. How to Backup\/Sync Directories Using Rsync (Remote Sync) Tool<\/a><\/li>\n
      2. How to Transfer Files\/Folders Using SCP Command<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        Exclude Files and Directories<\/h5>\n
        Here, I\u2019m going to exclude everything, and then only specifically define what I want to backed up. To do this, you need to create a exclude file.<\/p>\n
        # vi \/data\/backup\/tecmint.exclude<\/pre>\n
        First get the list of directories that you want to backed up and add (\u00a0\u2013 *<\/strong>\u00a0) to exclude everything else. This will only backup what you listed in the file. My exclude file looks like similar to below.<\/p>\n
        + \/boot\r\n+ \/data\r\n+ \/tecmint\r\n+ \/etc\r\n+ \/home\r\n+ \/opt\r\n+ \/root\r\n+ \/usr\r\n- \/usr\/*\r\n- \/var\/cache\r\n+ \/var\r\n- \/*<\/pre>\n
        Using exclude file option can be very tricky due to use of\u00a0rsync<\/strong>\u00a0recursion. So, my above example may not be what you are looking. Next add the exclude file to\u00a0rsnapshot.conf<\/strong>\u00a0file.<\/p>\n
        exclude_file    \/data\/backup\/tecmint.exclude<\/pre>\n
        Finally, you are almost finished with the initial configuration. Save the \u201c\/etc\/rsnapshot.conf<\/strong>\u201d configuration file before moving further. There are many options to explain, but here is my sample configuration file.<\/p>\n
        config_version  1.2\r\nsnapshot_root   \/data\/backup\/\r\ncmd_cp  \/bin\/cp\r\ncmd_rm  \/bin\/rm\r\ncmd_rsync       \/usr\/bin\/rsync\r\ncmd_ssh \/usr\/bin\/ssh\r\ncmd_logger      \/usr\/bin\/logger\r\ncmd_du  \/usr\/bin\/du\r\ninterval        hourly  6\r\ninterval        daily   7\r\ninterval        weekly  4\r\ninterval        monthly 3\r\nssh_args\t-p 25000\r\nverbose \t2\r\nloglevel        4\r\nlogfile \/var\/log\/rsnapshot\/\r\nexclude_file    \/data\/backup\/tecmint.exclude\r\nrsync_long_args --delete        --numeric-ids   --delete-excluded\r\nlockfile        \/var\/run\/rsnapshot.pid\r\nbackup\t\t\/tecmint\/\t\tlocalhost\/\r\nbackup\t\t\/etc\/\t\t\tlocalhost\/\r\nbackup\t\troot@example.com:\/home\/ \t\t\/data\/backup\/<\/pre>\n
        All the above options and argument explanations are as follows:<\/p>\n
          \n
        1. config_version 1.2<\/strong>\u00a0= Configuration file version<\/li>\n
        2. snapshot_root<\/strong>\u00a0= Backup Destination to store snapshots<\/li>\n
        3. cmd_cp<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to copy command<\/li>\n
        4. cmd_rm<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to remove command<\/li>\n
        5. cmd_rsync<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to rsync<\/li>\n
        6. cmd_ssh<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to SSH<\/li>\n
        7. cmd_logger<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to shell command interface to syslog<\/li>\n
        8. cmd_du<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to disk usage command<\/li>\n
        9. interval hourly<\/strong>\u00a0= How many hourly backups to keep.<\/li>\n
        10. interval daily<\/strong>\u00a0= How many daily backups to keep.<\/li>\n
        11. interval weekly<\/strong>\u00a0= How many weekly backups to keep.<\/li>\n
        12. interval monthly<\/strong>\u00a0= How many monthly backups to keep.<\/li>\n
        13. ssh_args<\/strong>\u00a0= Optional SSH arguments, such as a different port (-p )<\/li>\n
        14. verbose<\/strong>\u00a0= Self-explanatory<\/li>\n
        15. loglevel<\/strong>\u00a0= Self-explanatory<\/li>\n
        16. logfile<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to logfile<\/li>\n
        17. exclude_file<\/strong>\u00a0= Path to the exclude file (will be explained in more detail)<\/li>\n
        18. rsync_long_args<\/strong>\u00a0= Long arguments to pass to rsync<\/li>\n
        19. lockfile<\/strong>\u00a0= Self-explanatory<\/li>\n
        20. backup<\/strong>\u00a0= Full path to what to be backed up followed by relative path of placement.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          Step 4: Verify Rsnapshot Configuration<\/h3>\n
          Once you\u2019ve done with your all configuration, its time to verify that everything works as expected. Run the following command to verify that your configuration has the correct syntax.<\/p>\n
          # rsnapshot configtest\r\n\r\nSyntax OK<\/pre>\n
          If everything configured correctly, you will receive a \u201cSyntax OK<\/strong>\u201d message. If you get any error messages, that means you need to correct those errors before running\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
          Next, do a test run on one of the snapshot to make sure that we are generating correct results. We take the \u201chourly<\/strong>\u201d parameter to do a test run using\u00a0-t<\/strong>\u00a0(test<\/strong>) argument. This below command will display a verbose list of the things it will do, without actually doing them.<\/p>\n
          # rsnapshot -t hourly<\/pre>\n
          Sample Output<\/h5>\n
          echo 2028 > \/var\/run\/rsnapshot.pid \r\nmkdir -m 0700 -p \/data\/backup\/ \r\nmkdir -m 0755 -p \/data\/backup\/hourly.0\/ \r\n\/usr\/bin\/rsync -a --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded \/home \\\r\n    \/backup\/hourly.0\/localhost\/ \r\nmkdir -m 0755 -p \/backup\/hourly.0\/ \r\n\/usr\/bin\/rsync -a --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded \/etc \\\r\n    \/backup\/hourly.0\/localhost\/ \r\nmkdir -m 0755 -p \/data\/backup\/hourly.0\/ \r\n\/usr\/bin\/rsync -a --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded \\\r\n    \/usr\/local \/data\/backup\/hourly.0\/localhost\/ \r\ntouch \/data\/backup\/hourly.0\/<\/pre>\n
          Note<\/strong>: The above command tells\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0to create an \u201chourly<\/strong>\u201d backup. It actually prints out the commands that it will perform when we execute it really.<\/p>\n
          Step 5: Running Rsnapshot Manually<\/h3>\n
          After verifying your results, you can remove the \u201c-t<\/strong>\u201d option to run the command really.<\/p>\n
          # rsnapshot hourly<\/pre>\n
          The above command will run the backup script with all the configuration that we added in the\u00a0rsnapshot.conf<\/strong>file and creates a \u201cbackup<\/strong>\u201d directory and then creates the directory structure under it that organizes our files. After running above command, you can verify the results by going to the backup directory and list the directory structure using\u00a0ls -l command<\/a>\u00a0as shown.<\/p>\n
          # cd \/data\/backup\r\n# ls -l\r\n\r\ntotal 4\r\ndrwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 28 09:11 hourly.0<\/pre>\n
          Step 6: Automating the Process<\/h3>\n
          To automate the process, you need to schedule\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0to be run at certain intervals from\u00a0Cron<\/strong>. By default,\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0comes with\u00a0cron<\/strong>\u00a0file under \u201c\/etc\/cron.d\/rsnapshot<\/strong>\u201c, if it\u2019s doesn\u2019t exists create one and add the following lines to it.<\/p>\n
          By default rules are commented, so you need to remove the \u201c#<\/strong>\u201d from in front of the scheduling section to enable these values.<\/p>\n
          # This is a sample cron file for rsnapshot.\r\n# The values used correspond to the examples in \/etc\/rsnapshot.conf.\r\n# There you can also set the backup points and many other things.\r\n#\r\n# To activate this cron file you have to uncomment the lines below.\r\n# Feel free to adapt it to your needs.\r\n\r\n0     *\/4    * * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot hourly\r\n30     3     * * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot daily\r\n0      3     * * 1    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot weekly\r\n30     2     1 * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot monthly<\/pre>\n
          Let me explain exactly, what above cron rules does:<\/p>\n
            \n
          1. Runs every\u00a04 hours<\/strong>\u00a0and creates an\u00a0hourly<\/strong>\u00a0directory under\u00a0\/backup<\/strong>\u00a0directory.<\/li>\n
          2. Runs daily at\u00a03:30am<\/strong>\u00a0and create a\u00a0daily<\/strong>\u00a0directory under\u00a0\/backup<\/strong>\u00a0directory.<\/li>\n
          3. Runs\u00a0weekly<\/strong>\u00a0on every\u00a0Monday<\/strong>\u00a0at\u00a03:00am<\/strong>\u00a0and create a\u00a0weekly<\/strong>\u00a0directory under\u00a0\/backup<\/strong>\u00a0directory.<\/li>\n
          4. Runs every\u00a0monthly<\/strong>\u00a0at\u00a02:30am<\/strong>\u00a0and create a\u00a0monthly<\/strong>\u00a0directory under\u00a0\/backup<\/strong>\u00a0directory.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
            To better understand on how\u00a0cron rules<\/strong>\u00a0works, I suggest you read our article that describes.<\/p>\n
              \n
            1. 11 Cron Scheduling Examples<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              Step 7: Rsnapshot Reports<\/h3>\n
              The\u00a0rsnapshot<\/strong>\u00a0provides a nifty small reporting\u00a0Perl script<\/strong>\u00a0that sends you an\u00a0email alert<\/strong>\u00a0with all the details as to what occurred during your data backup. To setup this script, you need to copy the script somewhere under \u201c\/usr\/local\/bin<\/strong>\u201d and make it executable.<\/p>\n
              # cp \/usr\/share\/doc\/rsnapshot-1.3.1\/utils\/rsnapreport.pl \/usr\/local\/bin\r\n# chmod +x \/usr\/local\/bin\/rsnapreport.pl<\/pre>\n
              Next, add \u201c\u2013stats<\/strong>\u201d parameter in your \u201crsnapshot.conf<\/strong>\u201d file to the rsync\u2019s long arguments section.<\/p>\n
              vi \/etc\/rsnapshot.conf<\/pre>\n
              rsync_long_args --stats\t--delete        --numeric-ids   --delete-excluded<\/pre>\n
              Now edit the\u00a0crontab rules<\/strong>\u00a0that were added earlier and call the\u00a0rsnapreport.pl<\/strong>\u00a0script to pass the reports to specified email address.<\/p>\n
              # This is a sample cron file for rsnapshot.\r\n# The values used correspond to the examples in \/etc\/rsnapshot.conf.\r\n# There you can also set the backup points and many other things.\r\n#\r\n# To activate this cron file you have to uncomment the lines below.\r\n# Feel free to adapt it to your needs.\r\n\r\n0     *\/4    * * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot hourly 2>&1  | \\\/usr\/local\/bin\/rsnapreport.pl | mail -s \"Hourly Backup\" yourname@email.com\r\n30     3     * * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot daily 2>&1  | \\\/usr\/local\/bin\/rsnapreport.pl | mail -s \"Daily Backup\" yourname@email.com\r\n0      3     * * 1    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot weekly 2>&1  | \\\/usr\/local\/bin\/rsnapreport.pl | mail -s \"Weekly Backup\" yourname@email.com\r\n30     2     1 * *    root    \/usr\/bin\/rsnapshot monthly 2>&1  | \\\/usr\/local\/bin\/rsnapreport.pl | mail -s \"Montly Backup\" yourname@email.com<\/pre>\n
              Once you\u2019ve added above entries correctly, you will get a report to your e-mail address similar to below.<\/p>\n
              SOURCE           TOTAL FILES\tFILES TRANS\tTOTAL MB    MB TRANS   LIST GEN TIME  FILE XFER TIME\r\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\nlocalhost\/          185734\t   11853   \t 2889.45    6179.18    40.661 second   0.000 seconds<\/pre>\n
              Reference Links<\/h3>\n
                \n
              1. rsnapshot homepage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                That\u2019s it for now, if any problems occur during installation do drop me a comment. Till then stay tuned to\u00a0TecMint<\/strong>\u00a0for more interesting articles on the Open source world.<\/p>\n
                Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
                rsnapshot\u00a0is an open source\u00a0local\u00a0\/\u00a0remote\u00a0filesystem backup utility was written in\u00a0Perl\u00a0language that advantage the power of\u00a0Rsync\u00a0and\u00a0SSH\u00a0program to create, scheduled incremental backups of\u00a0Linux\/Unixfilesystems, while only taking up the space of one single full backup plus differences and keep those backups on\u00a0local\u00a0drive\u00a0to different\u00a0hard drive, an external\u00a0USB\u00a0stick, an\u00a0NFS mounted drive\u00a0or simply over the network to another machine via\u00a0SSH. Install Rsnapshot … <\/p>\n
                Continue reading “Rsnapshot (Rsync Based) \u2013 A Local\/Remote File System Backup Utility for Linux”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13358,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357\/revisions\/13358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appservgrid.com\/paw92\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}