RSYNC BACKUP MADE EASY

About
-------------------------------------

Using rsync for backups is becoming more and more popular on UNIX/Linux 
systems. Especially the variant with hardlinks on the backup media to conserve 
disk space has proven itself to be a very reliable backup solution. The method 
is already widely published on the Internet (e.g. this is a nice introduction), 
so that I will save myself the trouble of repeating it.

In a nutshell you get perpetual incremental backups that appear as full backups 
(for each day) and thus allow easy restore or further copying to tape etc. 
After the initial full backup RBME will forever do incremental backups against 
the last backup to conserve time and network bandwidth.

RBME is a simple tool to assist in implementing a general backup solution based 
on rsync and hardlinks with an automated management of the disk space on the 
backup media. This is achieved by removing old backups from the backup media in 
a way which will ensure that (over the long run) the amount of backups should 
even out for all hosts involved.

This is also the major reason for me to write this script, I didn't find a 
suitable script (that would manage the backup space and also watch the inodes) 
when I needed it. The other reason is of course the fact that studying another 
script would take at least the same time as writing my own and in such cases I 
tend to write my own.


Usage
------------------------------------

RBME expects you to provide a (large) backup space, preferably on a filesystem 
of its own (it makes the disk space management easier). After configuring RBME 
with your backup path and the thresholds that seem appropriate for your 
environment, simply run rbme for each backup host. By default it will use rsync 
over ssh to copy that host to the backup filesystem (Use ssh -c blowfish-cbc to 
somewhat speed up your backups by choosing a faster cipher, if your security 
policy allows for that). Example:

# rbme host3 host2 host1

This example will simply backup the hosts host3, host2 and host1 to your backup 
space. Every day on which you run RBME it will produce a new subdirectory in the 
backup space for that day, so that over time your backup space will look like 
that:

$BACKUP_PATH/
|-- host3/
|   |-- 2007-09-02/
|   |-- 2007-09-03/
|   |-- 2007-09-05/
|   |-- 2007-09-06/
|   |-- 2007-09-07/
|   |-- 2007-09-08/
|   |-- 2007-09-09/
|   |-- 2007-09-10/
|   `-- 2007-09-11/
|-- host2/
|   |-- 2007-09-02/
|   |-- 2007-09-03/
|   |-- 2007-09-05/
|   |-- 2007-09-06/
|   |-- 2007-09-07/
|   |-- 2007-09-08/
|   |-- 2007-09-09/
|   |-- 2007-09-10/
|   `-- 2007-09-11/
`-- host1/
    |-- 2007-09-05/
    |-- 2007-09-06/
    |-- 2007-09-07/
    |-- 2007-09-08/
    |-- 2007-09-09/
    |-- 2007-09-10/
    `-- 2007-09-11/

Under each date subdirectory you will find a complete copy of the host from 
that day. Usually RBME is run from cron on a daily or nightly base to keep all 
hosts always backed up.


Report
-------------------------------------

RBME produces a nice report of it's activities that serves as a daily backup 
report:

RSYNC BACKUP MADE EASY version 1.4 / 2008-05-20
Copyright (C) 2006,2008 Schlomo Schapiro, probusiness Berlin AG
Licensed under the GNU General Public License, see
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for full text

rbme backing up to /media/backup (30127 MB & 20183270 inodes available)
Free disk space requirements:
	20000 MB & 100000 inodes before host backup
	30000 MB & 200000 inodes after host backup

Backup of 'mars:/' in mars/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:03:28
	The backup for mars utilizes 81 MB & 19814 inodes

Backup of 'lucky:/ /home /var /media/nfsroot /media/install/sles10sp1' in lucky/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:59:53
	The backup for lucky utilizes 1862 MB & 174457 inodes
	Removing old backups to free some disk space
	Oldest backup (from 124): 2007-11-27
	Having 28184 MB & 19988997 inodes, deleting /media/backup/lucky/2007-11-27 in 939 seconds.
	Having 29737 MB & 20161230 inodes, deleting /media/backup/lucky/2007-11-28 in 931 seconds.

Backup of 'gw:/' in gw/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:00:25
	The backup for gw utilizes 17 MB & 2174 inodes

Backup of 'web:/' in web/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:02:43
	The backup for web utilizes 95 MB & 8552 inodes

Backup of 'mysql:/' in mysql/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:01:14
	The backup for mysql utilizes 42 MB & 5436 inodes

Backup of 'mail:/' in mail/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:01:22
	The backup for mail utilizes 40 MB & 5859 inodes

Backup of 'po:/' in po/2008-05-10 against 2008-05-09
	Backup runtime was 00:05:11
	The backup for po utilizes 281 MB & 6951 inodes

Backup Summary:
-------------------------------------------------

Backup targets: 

	mars:/
	lucky:/ /home /var /media/nfsroot /media/install/sles10sp1
	gw
	web
	mysql
	mail
	po

All 7 targets backed up successfully.

Backup filesystem has now 30819 MB available
Backup filesystem has now 20304589 inodes available
Total runtime was 01:45:51

See '/var/log/rbme.log.10' for full details.

Distribution of backup history:
-------------------------------------------------
   Backups         %   Target
       204     12.26   gw
       123      7.39   lucky
       307     18.46   mail
       177     10.64   mars
       312     18.76   mysql
       260     15.63   po
       280     16.83   web
-------------------------------------------------
Thank you for using RSYNC BACKUP MADE EASY

You should use the information about inode requirements to fine-tune the RBME 
configuration to guarantee sufficient free inodes before the backup starts. The 
amount of used MB and inodes gives an indication about the change rate of each 
host as only changed files (or new directories) occupy new inodes. Finally RBME 
gives a short statistical overview about the amount of old backups kept for 
each host.


Configuration
--------------------------------

RBME comes with a configuration file in /etc/rbme.conf where you should set 
your own values for the amount of free space or inodes that RBME should keep on 
your backup filesystem (hence better to use a dedicated filesystem). You can 
also set how many backups to always keep, even if it would mean violation the 
disk space thresholds. This ensures to always keep a minimum amount of old 
backups.

Specify the hosts and paths to backup as parameters to RBME. Two formats are 
recognized:
host
	Backup the entire host, crossing over mountpoints. Some typical mountpoints 
	are excluded by default, but make sure that you don't backup data 
	unintentionally (like NFS mounts etc.).
'host:/ /var /boot /home'
	Backup the specified paths on the remote host (you cannot specify a path 
	with a blank in it here, this is an rsync issue, not RBME). In this mode RBME 
	will not descend into mount points, hence you have to specify all mount points 
	or paths to backup here. This method also safeguards against accidentially 
	backing up temporary NFS mounts etc. and is the recommended way to use RBME.

Excludes are managed locally on each backup host, to keep the information local 
to the host (and allow a local admin to manage his/her own excludes). Simply 
create a file /etc/backup-excludes.lst on each host to exclude files and 
directories. Please refer to the rsync manpage (section INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN 
RULES) for full details on the format. A small example will suffice here:

/media/stuff/backup/*
/media/scratch/backup/*
/media/files/backup/*

This example excludes various other backup directories on a server from this 
backup. The /* notation makes sure that the directory itself is backed up, but 
not the content.

To verify the configuration simply run RBME without a parameter:

# rbme
RSYNC BACKUP MADE EASY version 1.4 / 2008-05-20
Copyright (C) 2006,2007 Schlomo Schapiro, probusiness Berlin AG
Licensed under the GNU General Public License, see
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for full text

Usage:

/usr/bin/rbme <host:/path> ...
        host:/path is in rsync notation, see rsync(1) for more information
        Use host without :/path to specify entire host (with certain defaults
        excluded).

Include / Exclude files:
        On each backup host, /etc/backup-excludes.lst can be used to specify
        local excludes (in rsync notation !) and /etc/backup-includes.lst can
        be used to specify local includes (though usually one uses only excludes,
        as the includes do NOT include files not part of the :/path spec !).

Instance support:
        Create symlinks to the executable to create more instances with dedicated
        configuration. Each instance will have a dedicated logfile and produce
        different email reports.

Current configuration:
(change settings in /etc/rbme.conf (Master) and /etc/rbme.conf (Instance))
                           BACKUP_PATH = /media/backup
           MIN_FREE_BEFORE_HOST_BACKUP = 20000
         MIN_INODES_BEFORE_HOST_BACKUP = 100000
            MIN_FREE_AFTER_HOST_BACKUP = 30000
          MIN_INODES_AFTER_HOST_BACKUP = 200000
                  MIN_KEEP_OLD_BACKUPS = 5
                                 RSYNC = /usr/bin/rsync
                             RSYNC_RSH = ssh -c blowfish-cbc
                   RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTIONS = 
                               VERBOSE = 
                                REPORT = yes
                            STATISTICS = yes
                                 DEBUG = 
                                MAILTO = your@email-address.com
                              MAILFROM = root@your.host.name.com
                             MAILSTYLE = report
                               LOGFILE = /var/log/rbme.log.20

Project homepage: http://www.schapiro.org/schlomo/projects

Installation
--------------------------

RBME is distributed as tar.gz archive or as noarch DEB (in the out/ folder), which is the 
recommended installation method for DEB-based systems. After installing RBME 
you have to edit /etc/rbme.local.conf to adapt RBME to your environment (at least set 
the backup path).

Start from doing some test runs with a few hosts to get the feeling for RBME 
and then you can create a cron job that will run RBME regularly and mail the 
report back to you.


Feedback
---------------------------

You can contact me at rbme@schlomo.schapiro.org to send me your feedback, thanks and patches

Schlomo Schapiro