Linux Sample Backup with Duplicity

Duplicity backs directories by producing encrypted tar-format volumes and uploading them to a remote or local file server. Because duplicity uses librsync, the incremental archives are space efficient and only record the parts of files that have changed since the last backup. Because duplicity uses GnuPG to encrypt and/or sign these archives, they will be safe from spying and/or modification by the server.

Installation

Duplicity can be installed on Debian/Ubuntu as simply as:

But it is not in the CentOS/Red Hat default repositories, so you need to install it from another source. This script will help in this installation process:

#!/bin/bash
 
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/duplicity-0.6.18-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/ncftp-3.2.4-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/librsync-0.9.7-15.el6.x86_64.rpm
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/python-GnuPGInterface-0.3.2-6.el6.noarch.rpm
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/python-boto-2.5.2-1.el6.noarch.rpm
 
rpm -Uvh duplicity-0.6.18-1.el6.x86_64.rpm ncftp-3.2.4-1.el6.x86_64.rpm librsync-0.9.7-15.el6.x86_64.rpm python-GnuPGInterface-0.3.2-6.el6.noarch.rpm python-boto-2.5.2-1.el6.noarch.rpm

Command line basics

To make a backup, you can run:

To verify it:

To list backed-up files:

To restore a single file:

Preliminaries

These scripts assume the following default values:

• The value of $TOMCAT_HOME is "/home/openkm/tomcat-9.0.76"
• The OpenKM database is named "okmdb".
• The OpenKM database password is "*secret*".
• The location of the OpenKM start & stop service script is "/etc/init.d/tomcat"

Sample script

The USB disk mount point can be defined in /etc/fstab as:

/dev/sdb1    /mnt/backup    ext4    defaults    0    0

These are the global script sections:

• Global variable configuration under the ## BEGIN CONFIG ## section.
• Checking for the root user under the # Check root section.
• Deleting older database backups under the # Delete older local database backup section.
• Mount disk (optional section) under the # Mount disk section.
• Stop application (optional section) under the # Stop tomcat section.
• Clean logs (optional section) under the # Clean logs section.
• Backup the database to the file system under the # Backup database section.
• Backup repository and database dump to the backup destination under the # Backup and purge old backups section.
• Start application (optional section) under the # Start tomcat section.
• Show statistics (optional section) under the # Status section.
• Unmount disk (optional section) under the # Umount disk section.

Explanation of configuration parameters:

Create a backup script /root/backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
## BEGIN CONFIG ##
HOST=$(uname -n)
DATABASE_PASS="*secret*"
OPENKM_DB="okmdb"
OPENKM_HOME="/home/openkm"
TOMCAT_HOME="$OPENKM_HOME/tomcat-9.0.76"
DATABASE_EXP="$OPENKM_HOME/db"
BACKUP_DIR="file:///mnt/backup"
## END CONFIG ##

# Check root user 
if [ $(id -u) != 0 ]; then echo "You should run this script as root"; exit; fi

# Delete older local database backup  
echo -e "### BEGIN: $(date +"%x %X") ###\n"
rm -rf $DATABASE_EXP
mkdir -p $DATABASE_EXP
 
# Mount disk
if mount | grep "$BACKUP_DIR type" > /dev/null; then
  echo "$BACKUP_DIR already mounted";
else
  mount "$BACKUP_DIR";
  
  if mount | grep "$BACKUP_DIR type" > /dev/null; then
    echo "$BACKUP_DIR mounted";
  else
    echo "$BACKUP_DIR error mounting";
    exit -1;
  fi
fi
 
# Stop Tomcat
/etc/init.d/tomcat stop
 
# Clean logs
#echo "Clean Tomcat temporal files."
#rm -rf $TOMCAT_HOME/logs/*
#rm -rf $TOMCAT_HOME/temp/*
#rm -rf $TOMCAT_HOME/work/Catalina/localhost
 
# Backup database
if [ -n "$DATABASE_PASS" ]; then
  echo "* Backuping MySQL data from $OPENKM_DB..."
  mysqldump -h localhost -u root -p$DATABASE_PASS $OPENKM_DB > $DATABASE_EXP/mysql_$OPENKM_DB.sql
  echo "-------------------------------------";
fi
 
# Backup and purge old backups
duplicity remove-older-than 1M --force $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
 
if [ $(date +%u) -eq 7 ]; then
  echo "*** Full Backup ***"
  duplicity full --no-encryption $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
else
  echo "*** Incremental Backup ***"
  duplicity --no-encryption $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
fi
 
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo "*** SUCCESS ***"
[ $RETVAL -ne 0 ] && echo "*** FAILURE ***"
 
# Start Tomcat
/etc/init.d/tomcat start
echo -e "\n### END: $(date +"%x %X") ###"
 
# Status
echo "=================================";
duplicity collection-status $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
echo "*********************************";
df -h | grep "$BACKUP_DIR"
echo "=================================";
 
# Umount disk
sync
umount "$BACKUP_DIR"

Increase the backup period

Modify the # Backup and purge old backups section, increasing the parameter value:

--remove-older-than 3M

Perform the remote backup

Modify the  ## Config section.

BACKUP_DIR="ftp://user@ftp.domain.es/backup"
export FTP_PASSWORD="WhateverPasswordYouSetUp"

Modify the # Backup and purge old backups section.

# Backup and purge old backups
duplicity remove-older-than 1M --force $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
 
if [ $(date +%u) -eq 7 ]; then
  echo "*** Full Backup ***"
  duplicity full --no-encryption $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
else
  echo "*** Incremental Backup ***"
  duplicity --no-encryption $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
fi
 
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo "*** SUCCESS ***"
[ $RETVAL -ne 0 ] && echo "*** FAILURE ***"

Modify the # Status section.

duplicity collection-status $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
unset FTP_PASSWORD

Perform the remote backup to SMB or CIFS

Modify the # Mount disk section.

# Mount disk
if mount | grep "$BACKUP_DIR type" > /dev/null; then
  echo "$BACKUP_DIR already mounted";
else
  echo "Mounting $BACKUP_DIR ...";
  mount -t cifs //REMOTE_SERVER/REMOTE_DIR $BACKUP_DIR -o username=REMOTE_USER,password=REMOTE_PASSWORD,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777
  
  if mount | grep "$BACKUP_DIR type" > /dev/null; then
    echo "$BACKUP_DIR mounted";
  else
    echo "Error mounting $BACKUP_DIR.";
    exit -1;
  fi
fi

Do the PostgreSQL backup

Modify the # Backup database section

# Backup de PostgreSQL
echo "* Backuping PostgreSQL data from $OPENKM_DB..."
su postgres -c "pg_dump $OPENKM_DB" > $DATABASE_EXP/pg_$OPENKM_DB.sql
 
# Databases optimizations
su postgres -c "vacuumdb -a -z" > /dev/null
su postgres -c "reindexdb -a -q" 2> /dev/null

Do the remote backup to Amazon s3

Modify the  ## Config section section.

BACKUP_DIR="s3+http://somebucket/somedirectory"
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=""
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=""
export PASSPHRASE=""

Modify the # Backup and purge old backups section.

# Backup and purge old backups
if [ $(date +%u) -eq 7 ]; then
  echo "*** Full Backup ***"
  duplicity full --no-encryption --s3-use-new-style $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
else
  echo "*** Incremental Backup ***"
  duplicity --no-encryption --s3-use-new-style $OPENKM_HOME $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
  RETVAL=$?
fi
 
[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && echo "*** SUCCESS ***"

Modify the # Status section. 

# Status
duplicity collection-status --s3-use-new-style $BACKUP_DIR/$HOST
unset AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
unset AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
unset PASSPHRASE

Configure crontab

To install the cron job, run:

Add these lines according to your personal configuration:

MAILTO=nomail@openkm.com
@daily /root/backup.sh | tee /root/logs/backup.$(date +\%Y.\%m.\%d_\%H.\%M.\%S).log

Troubleshooting deleting old backups

You have configured Duplicity to make a full backup every 7 days and to delete backups older than 14 days to save space. What happens if you see a message like this?

Tue May  1 00:00:00 2012
Wed May  2 00:00:00 2012
Which can't be deleted because newer sets depend on them

Duplicity uses rsync, which records incremental changes. Those files won't be deleted because, even though a backup may be older than 7 days, there are incremental backups that are newer than 7 days.

So, after two weeks have passed, those files will be deleted, since the full backup and the incremental backups are now 14 days old, and there exists a full backup newer than those backups.

Restoring backup

You can list the available backups:

Then decide to restore one of the backups, for example the one made on Sun Aug 28 00:00:13 2012:

Additional information

• Using Duplicity to Backup Your Data
• Ubuntu/Debian - Encrypted Incremental Backups With Duplicity on Amazon S3
• Duplicity Backup Howto
• Duplicity URL Format
• Installation and configuration of duplicity for encrypted SFTP remote backup
• Playing with Duplicity backup and restore tool and Amazon S3
• Bash wrapper script for automated backups with duplicity