Backup (Old Notes)

Note

The process below can easily be adapted for use with any linux based storage system because we use Duplicity, ssh keys and gpg for encryption.

Links

Strategy (draft)

http://duplicity.nongnu.org/duplicity.1.html

Using the following commands:

remove-all-but-n-full
remove-all-inc-of-but-n-full

We will run one backup which does weekly full, daily incremental, deleting full backups over 4 weeks, and incremental over 7 days.

We will run another (separate) monthly full backup which is deleted after 3 months.

For database backups:

# put the database backups into a 'backup' folder on the cloud server e.g.
/home/web/repo/backup/pkimber.net/20141024_1700.sql
/home/web/repo/backup/hatherleigh.info/20141024_1704.sql

# cron task will remove the previous days backups after making todays e.g.
rm /home/web/repo/backup/pkimber.net/20141023_1600.sql
rm /home/web/repo/backup/hatherleigh.info/20141023_1604.sql

# duplicity will back this up to rsync.net
duplicity full --encrypt-key="ABCD0001" \
  scp://123@tv-s009.rsync.net/pkimber.net/backup \
  /home/web/repo/backup/pkimber.net
duplicity full --encrypt-key="ABCD0001" \
  scp://123@tv-s009.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup \
  /home/web/repo/backup/hatherleigh.info

# duplicity will verify the backup
duplicity verify --encrypt-key="ABCD0001" \
  scp://123@tv-s009.rsync.net/pkimber.net/backup \
  /home/web/repo/backup/pkimber.net
duplicity verify --encrypt-key="ABCD0001" \
  scp://123@tv-s009.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup \
  /home/web/repo/backup/hatherleigh.info

What can we do?

Delete all backups older than x days (weeks or months)

Remove all backups older than count full backups

Remove all incrementals older than count full backups

F   1st Sept
I
I
F   15th Sept
I
I
F   1st Oct
I

Getting Started

Install Duplicity 0.6

Note

We are using Duplicity 0.6 because the latest version of Duplicity on Ubuntu 16.04 doesn’t work nicely with the Duplicity on our 14.04 servers. When our servers are using 16.04, then we can probably go back to installing the standard distro version i.e. sudo apt-get install duplicity python-paramiko

Restore

Restore - Server

Duplicity

Tip

To install an earlier version of Duplicity, see Install Duplicity 0.6

To list the files on rsync.net:

# database backup (and any files in the backup folder)
ssh 123@usw-s001.rsync.net ls -la hatherleigh.info/backup
# files backup
ssh 123@usw-s001.rsync.net ls -la hatherleigh.info/files

To list backup dates:

duplicity collection-status ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup

To list the backups:

duplicity list-current-files ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup
duplicity list-current-files ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/files

Duplicity makes restoring easy. You can restore by simply reversing the remote and local parameters.

Note

You will probably see Operation not permitted errors. This is Duplicity attempting to restore owner and group permissions on the files.

To restore a folder:

PASSPHRASE="gpg-password" \
  duplicity \
  --file-to-restore \
  "path/to/folder/" \
  ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/files \
  /path/to/restore/folder/

Note

When restoring a folder, /path/to/restore/folder/ must not exist. It will be created by Duplicity.

To restore a single file (in this example we are restoring from a Dropbox backup):

PASSPHRASE="gpg-password" \
  duplicity \
  --file-to-restore \
  "Dropbox/Contact/Cycle Policy.docx" \
  ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/dropbox/web.hatherleigh.info/files \
  "/path/to/restore/Cycle Policy.docx"

Note

When restoring a single file, /path/to/restore/policy.docx is the file name NOT the folder name.

To restore by date or time:

To restore a full set of files from 2 days ago (note you can omit the restore):

duplicity restore -t 2D ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup
  /path/to/restore/file

To restore a full set of files from a specific time (note you can omit the restore):

The --time format is YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ and Duplicity will pull the restore from the next backup older than the time entered e.g. collection-status shows a backup dated 20141125T112710Z and one dated 20141125T122710Z enter --time as 20141125T113000Z and retrieve data from 20141125T112710Z:

duplicity restore --time 20141125T113000Z \
  ssh://123@usw-s001.rsync.net/hatherleigh.info/backup \
  /path/to/restore/file

Warning

Restoring from rsync.net back to any location other than the original location will result in an Error '[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: prefix to each restored file although the files will restore and be available… this is a known bug with Duplicity to do with permissions. See: Why do I get an ‘Operation not permitted’

Usage

Install Duplicity 0.6

Here are some instructions for installing 0.6 version of duplicity. I’ve installed it in /opt/duplicity so that it is not overwritten by a new version when we upgrade ubuntu.

Remove the installed version of duplicity:

apt remove duplicity

Download the latest version of the 0.6 tarball from: https://code.launchpad.net/duplicity/0.6-series/0.6.26/+download/duplicity-0.6.26.tar.gz

Create a directory for Duplicity (you will need to sudo for this):

# sudo
mkdir /opt/duplicity

Extract the archive to a temporary folder.

Change into the folder and run:

# sudo
python setup.py install --prefix=/opt/duplicity

You might need to:

sudo apt install librsync-dev python-dev python-lockfile python-paramiko

Create a script (in your home folder) to run duplicity as follows:

# vim ~/bin/duplicity

#!/bin/bash
# exit immediately if a command exits with a nonzero exit status.
set -e
# treat unset variables as an error when substituting.
set -u
export PYTHONPATH='/opt/duplicity/lib/python2.7/site-packages/'
/opt/duplicity/bin/duplicity $@

Make it executable:

chmod a+x ~/bin/duplicity

Test it using:

~/bin/duplicity --version

Then uninstall the distro version:

sudo apt-get remove duplicity