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13 AutomatedBackup

The document discusses automating backups using cron jobs and rsync. It covers backup strategies, using the rsync daemon for backups, and formatting crontab files. Key points are that backups should be automated and painless, the rsync daemon has overhead so periodic backups are better, and cron jobs can run backups scripts on a schedule.

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14 views

13 AutomatedBackup

The document discusses automating backups using cron jobs and rsync. It covers backup strategies, using the rsync daemon for backups, and formatting crontab files. Key points are that backups should be automated and painless, the rsync daemon has overhead so periodic backups are better, and cron jobs can run backups scripts on a schedule.

Uploaded by

d.vargas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IT 341: Introduction to System

Administration

Notes for Project #9:


Automating the Backup Process
Topics
• Backup Strategies
• Backing Up with the rsync Daemon
• The crontab Utility
• Format of a crontab File
• Creating a Backup Script
Backup Strategies
• Backups present a classic problem in rewards
versus costs
• Normally, when you perform some action, there
is an immediate result
• You do something, and you can see the effects
immediately or shortly thereafter
• But this is not true for backups
Backup Strategies
• Backups should be done every day and, if you
are lucky, you might never need them
• For this reasons backups must be as painless as
possible otherwise they will not be done
regularly
• The best way to make them painless is to make
them automatic
Backing Up with the rsync Daemon
• rsync comes in two forms
• A utility
• A daemon
• The rsync daemon is a background process that is
always running
• Every time a change is made to the contents of a disk,
that change is written to the archive
• This approach has two problems…
Backing Up with the rsync Daemon
• First, the daemon is constantly running so it
continually generating network traffic
• And this traffic is greatest when the system is most
heavily used
• In other words, this approach has a high overhead
• For this reason, experienced system administrators
don't recommend using the rsync daemon for backups
• But, there is another problem…
Backing Up with the rsync Daemon
• Backing up constantly means you have the latest
copies of everything -- including mistakes!
• A much better approach is to make a new backup
periodically
• This way, if a mistake is made in the current version of
a file you can go back to an earlier version
Using cron
• cron is a daemon that runs specific programs at specific times
• Although cron can run any command or program it usually
runs scripts
• cron is often used for system administration tasks
• The list of programs to be run is contained in a crontab file
• A crontab file is a text file with a list of commands or
programs and when they should be run
• The system itself has a crontab file, /etc/crontab
Using cron
• Also, every user has his or her own crontab file
• These files are stored in /var/spool/cron/crontabs on
Ubuntu systems and in /var/spool/cron on Red Hat
installations
• These user crontab files have the same filename as the
username
• A crontab file cannot be edited directly
• Instead, you must use the crontab utility
Using cron
• By default, all users can create a crontab file
• But if a /etc/cron.allow file exists then only users listed
there can use cron
• If a /etc/cron.allow file does not exist but a
/etc/cron.deny does then only users not listed in
/etc/cron.deny can use cron
The crontab Utility

•To create or edit a crontab file you must use


the crontab utility
•crontab has two options
-l List the contents of the crontab file
-e edit a crontab file
Format of a crontab File
• Each line of a crontab file specifies a command or program and when
it is to run
• Each entry in the file must end in a newline character
• Each of these entries is called a cron job
• Each entry has 6 fields
• Minute
• Hour
• Day of month
• Month
• Day of week
• Program or command to be executed
Format of a crontab File
• The format for a crontab line is
* * * * * command to execute
┬ ┬ ┬ ┬ ┬
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └───── day of week (0 - 6) (0 to 6 are
Sunday to Saturday, or use names)
│ │ │ └────────── month (1 - 12)
│ │ └─────────────── day of month (1 - 31)
│ └──────────────────── hour (0 - 23)
└───────────────────────── minute (0 - 59)
Format of a crontab File
• There must be an entry in all fields and each entry is separated from the others by
whitespace
• If a time field has no number, it must have a *
• If I wanted the script daily_backup.sh to run every night at 1:15 AM I would
create the following entry
15 1 * * * daily_backup.sh
• If I wanted the script monthly_backup.sh to run on the first of every month at
2:10 AM on the first of every month I would create the following entry
10 2 1 * * monthly_backup.sh
• If I wanted the script yearly_backup.sh to run on the last day of the year at 3:20
AM on the last day of the year I would create the following entry
20 3 31 12 * yearly_backup.sh
Creating a Backup Script
• Before we can use cron to run backups, we must
create a backup script
• This backup script will run rsync to create a
backup of /etc to another machine on the network
in a directory whose name is today's date in
YYYY-MM-DD format

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