backup-servername.sh

#!/bin/bash

# This is a simple backup script that uses rsync to backup files and does
# complete mysql table dumps. Note that this script DOES NOT EXPIRE OLD BACKUPS.
# Place it in /etc/cron.daily to execute it automatically. For hourly backups,
# it will need to be placed in /etc/cron.hourly, and the $TODAY / $YESTERDAY
# variables will need to be changed.

TODAY=`date +"%Y%m%d"`
YESTERDAY=`date -d "1 day ago" +"%Y%m%d"`

# Set the path to rsync on the remote server so it runs with sudo.
RSYNC="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync"

# This is a list of files to ignore from backups.
EXCLUDES="/etc/servername.excludes"

# I use a separate volume for backups. Remember that you will not be generating
# backups that are particularly large (other than the initial backup), but that
# you will be creating thousands of hardlinks on disk that will consume inodes.
DESTINATION="/media/servername/$TODAY/"

# I like to keep the separate volume unmounted to save me from accidentally
# nuking backups.
mount /media/servername

# Keep database backups in a separate directory.
mkdir -p /media/servername/db

# This command rsync's files from the remote server to the local server.
# Flags:
#   -z enables gzip compression of the transport stream.
#   -e enables using ssh as the transport prototcol.
#   --rsync-path lets us pass the remote rsync command through sudo.
#   --archive preserves all file attributes and permissions.
#   --exclude-from points to our configuration of files and directories to skip.
#   --numeric-ids is needed if user ids don't match between the source and
#       destination servers.
#   --link-dest is a key flag. It tells the local rsync process that if the
#       file on the server is identical to the file in ../$YESTERDAY, instead
#       of transferring it create a hard link. You can use the "stat" command
#       on a file to determine the number of hard links. Note that when
#       calculating disk space, du includes disk space used for the first
#       instance of a linked file it encounters. To properly determine the disk
#       space used of a given backup, include both the backup and it's previous
#       backup in your du command.
#
# The "rsync" user is a special user on the remote server that has permissions
# to run a specific rsync command. We limit it so that if the backup server is
# compromised it can't use rsync to overwrite remote files by setting a remote
# destination. I determined the sudo command to allow by running the backup
# with the rsync user granted permission to use any flags for rsync, and then
# copied the actual command run from ps auxww. With these options, under
# Ubuntu, the sudo line is:
#
#   rsync	ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync --server --sender -logDtprze.iLsf --numeric-ids . /
#
# Note the NOPASSWD option in the sudo configuration. For remote
# authentication use a password-less SSH key only allowed read permissions by
# the backup server's root user.
rsync -z -e "ssh" \
	--rsync-path="$RSYNC" \
	--archive \
	--exclude-from=$EXCLUDES \
	--numeric-ids \
	--link-dest=../$YESTERDAY rsync@servername:/ $DESTINATION

# Backup all databases. I backup all databases into a single file. It might be
# preferable to back up each database to a separate file. If you do that, I
# suggest adding a configuration file that is looped over with a bash for() 
# loop.
ssh rsync@servername "mysqldump \
	--user=root \
	--password="my-super-secure-password" \
	--all-databases \
	--lock-tables \
	| bzip2" > /media/servername/db/$TODAY.sql.bz2

# Remove this if you keep the backup directory mounted.
umount /media/servername

servername.excludes

/dev
/proc
/sys
/media
/mnt
/swapfile
/tmp
/var/tmp
/var/lib/mysql/
/var/lib/varnish/servername

Thanks for a great script!

I added

TODAY=`date +"%Y%m%d"`
YESTERDAY=`date -d "1 day ago" +"%Y%m%d"`
OLDBACKUP=`date -d "2 days ago" +"%Y%m%d"`

rm -R $OLDBACKUP

Will this destroy the setup with the --link-dest?