Here we go folks, I thought I would share a handy little script with you that I use to backup all of the databases on a particular Linux/UNIX server.  I do this by getting a list of the databases, and then using mysqldump to dump them all to a text file.  This seems to be the best way (short of replication) to get good clean backups of the data.  Toss it into a cron job and you can have it done automagically.  There isn’t anything yet to rotate files, but I might add that later.  Also, I am going to try and rewrite this in PERL so our Windows (and other OS’s that don’t have a shell like Bash) brethren can run this script as well.  For now though, it’s written for Bash but almost any shell would work I think.

OK, onto the script.  Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings everyone, I am back with more information about backing up your files.  I know, I know, talking about backups might be boring, but one day a good backup will save your butt, I guarantee it.  Previously I posted an article extolling the virtues of rsync, a very powerful command line tool for syncing files both locally and across networks via SSH.  This is great for command line addicts like myself, and especially because you can use it in scripts such that along with shared keys and keychain it becomes a powerful tool in your arsenal of sysadmin goodies.

Now, for folks that aren’t command like geeks, or maybe just want a quick and easy way to backup some files, there is a nifty little tool called grsync.  This is (as you can probably guess from the name) a gui for the command line rsync, making it much more user friendly.  Also, it’s quite nice for pointing and clicking what you want, and then seeing what the command it will use is, a learning tool.

The home of grsync is here:

http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/

For Debian, Ubuntu users you can find it in the repositories.

One thing I have been doing for many years now, decades even, is backing up and restoring data.  It’s easy to backup stuff at home, simply copy your valuable bits and bytes to an external hard drive or write them to a CD-R or DVD-R.  This makes backups easy, though a bit cumbersome, especially as hard drives and data requirements get bigger and bigger.  Think about all the digital content we have nowadays versus just a few years ago.  Movies, music, games and more that get purchased and downloaded right off the net mean more and more gigabytes to backup.

Screenshot of BackupPC software

Still though, for saving the critical stuff like documents and pictures, CD’s and DVD’s are OK.  But what about when you have more than one computer?  With prices falling and computer technology getting more and more prevalent in the home, it’s not un-common for households to have at least two computers in the form of a desktop and laptop.  However, I am seeing more and more households with computers for mom and dad, the kids, grandparents and then some laptops on top of all that!  Whew!  Now we are getting into one major pile of work to try and back all that up.

In the commercial world where you are backing up a data center full of servers and/or cubes laden with workstations, you buy commercial software like Veritas Backup Exec or NetBackup or Arcserve, etc.  Throw your data onto tapes inside a robotic tape library and manage it all from one central console.  Now, that’s all well and good, but it’s very expensive and doesn’t exactly fit in the average home very well.

So, where does that leave people like me and I am sure many of you out there that still have several computers to backup?  We are caught in a kind of in between place.  Well, I am going to share some good stuff that I have found, and actually have been very impressed with. Read the rest of this entry »

Need to sync some files? Locally or remotely? How about re-thinking an old friend, rsync?

You may be like I was, and have discounted rsync for a long time due to the security risk imposed by running the “r” daemon on your servers. Guess what? You can not only use rsync to sync up local directories on the same server (this can be real handy for backups), but you can also sync from one server to another via SSH rather than the rsync daemon. This would be much like scp, only you can sync whole directory trees.

So. Let’s say you want to sync two local directories, how would you do that? Well, if we are syncing /export/datadir to /export/backupdir it would look something like this:

rsync -aruv /export/datadir/ /export/backupdir/

It’s just that easy. Now, those command line switches, what do they do? Check it out:

a = archive
r = recursive
u = skip files that are newer on the receiving end
v = verbose, tell me what's going on

There is another one that is good when syncing between two separate servers, and that is the “z” switch. This tells rsync to use compression during the file transfer thus saving bandwidth. Let’s see what the above would look like from one server to another, as if you are running the command from the server you are syncing to:

rsync -aruvhz --progress server1:/export/datadir/ /export/backupdir/

There are a couple other options there, did you notice? I have added the “h” which tells rsync to output information in human readable format (GB, MB, K, etc), and the –progress which tells rsync to report exactly that, the progress of each transfer. You can use these with local transfers too, mix and match as you see fit.

For any of you that use MailWasher, have you gotten tired of manually re-entering all of your email account data every time you re-install, re-build or switch computers? I know I have. If you don’t have to do that very often, or if you don’t have more than one or two email accounts, it’s not that bad. But still, there is all of the data in your Friends list and Black list that you might not want to re-create. If you don’t know what MailWasher is, it’s a great email management and anti-spam tool that we featured as a Cool Tool awhile back, check it out.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have posted before about Backups and their importance in the world.  The subject has inspired me to write a whole article on the subject of Backups, Disaster Recovery and Mitigating Downtime in the hopes that I can explain a few things, share some ideas and observations, and maybe help you understand the different aspects of data protection that go into the subject of backups.  I hope it will prove helpful!