Rsync Backup Script

Introduction

This is a sample backup script, utilizing rsync, which will backup a Linux or Mac OS X system to XMission's Remote Drive service. It can be adapted easily for other servers.

After the initial copy, it only backs up incremental changes, saving you time and storage.

Script

#!/bin/bash
HOST=`hostname -s`
EXCLUDE='--exclude=**/[Cc]ache/**'
RSYNC_ARGS="-vaz --progress --delete --delete-excluded --delete-after $EXCLUDE"
BACKUP_DIRS="/var/www /home /etc /usr/local /var/spool/cron /var/lib"
SERVER="shell.xmission.com"
SERVERDIR="backup"
DATE=`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S`

ssh $SERVER "if [ ! -f $SERVERDIR/log ]; then mkdir $SERVERDIR/log; \
  fi;
  if [ ! -f $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.0 ]; then mkdir $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.0; \
  fi"

ssh $SERVER "rm -rf $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.8; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.7 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.8; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.6 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.7; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.5 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.6; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.4 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.5; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.3 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.4; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.2 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.3; \
  mv $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.1 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.2; \
  cp -al $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.0 $SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.1"

for DIR in $BACKUP_DIRS; do
   rsync $RSYNC_ARGS $DIR ${SERVER}:$SERVERDIR/$HOST/daily.0/ >>/tmp/$HOST-$DATE
done

gzip --best /tmp/$HOST-$DATE

scp /tmp/$HOST-$DATE.gz $SERVER:$SERVERDIR/log

rm /tmp/$HOST-$DATE.gz

Cron Entry

You will need a cron entry to rotate out the old weekly directories and prune the log files, depending on how long you want to keep them. The below example keeps a month's worth of weekly incremental backups.

15 3 * * Sun backup-weekly >/dev/null 2>&1
0 5 * * * find backup/log -type f -mtime +14 -exec rm -rf {} \;

backup-weekly script:

#!/bin/sh

cd backup
for DIR in `ls -1d */daily.8 | awk -F / '{print $1}'`; do
  cd $DIR
  rm -rf weekly.[3456789]
  mv weekly.2 weekly.3
  mv weekly.1 weekly.2
  mv daily.8 weekly.0
  cd ..
done