backup « Admins eHow

May 4, 2011

Backup Files or MySQL DBs to a remote FTP server with compression and encryption

Filed under: CentOS,Debian,General,linux,Security — Tags: backup, compression, database, encryption, file, folder, ftp, MySQL — admin @ 6:30 pm

After my previous article which explained how to backup MySQL DBs to an email address , I am going to provide a more perfect solution in this article
The previous solution had some drawbacks and some advantages but the biggest problem was about the size of backup. although we compress the data with bzip2 algorithm which provides a high level of compression but in many cases, the attachment size will exceed 25MB or the limit of your email box. so it can not be used with public email services or will need a personal email server.
a better solution is to backup the data to a remote FTP server. in this case we will have almost no limit on file size (depending on your remote FTP server).
A perfect place to backup your files is fileserve.com , it offers 500GB of space for free and FTP access to it ! it is awesome ! I would recommend to upgrade to their premium service.
click on this link to signup for your free account : FileServe.com Free Account
also we will employ encryption to make sure our data is safe in transmit and in remote location.
to use this solution make sure bzip2, mcrypt and ncftp are installed on your server. I am not going into the details of installing each package, Google is your friend
so lets say you want to backup /var/www folder, use the following command :

tar jcf - /var/www | mcrypt -k 'SOME_LONG_COMPLEX_KEY' |  ncftpput -c -u FTP_USER -p FTP_PASS FTP_HOST /PREFIX-`date +%Y%m%d`

this only command will compress the whole /var/www folder by tar and bzip2 at the same time encrypt it by your key and at the same time will upload it to remote FTP server !
omg ! thats why I love Linux ! you can put it in your crontab to create automatic backups.
now lets say you want to backup all MySQL DBs , you can use the following command :

mysqldump --user=USERNAME --password=PASSWORD -A | bzip2 | mcrypt -k 'SOME_LONG_COMPLEX_KEY' |  ncftpput -c -u FTP_USER -p FTP_PASS FTP_HOST /PREFIX-`date +%Y%m%d`

the combinations and possibilities are limitless !
I just gave you the idea and showed you the power, use your own brain to make your perfect solution
Just something else , if you needed to decrypt the file , you can use the following command :

mcrypt -d FILE_NAME -k 'YOUR_LONG_COMPLEX_KEY' > NEW_FILE_NAME

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April 29, 2011

Backup all MySQL DBs and Compress and Email the backup

Filed under: CentOS,Debian,General,linux,MySQL — Tags: backup, cron, crontab, daily, email, mail, MySQL — admin @ 1:28 pm

Make sure mutt & bzip2 are installed on your server.
Change USERNAME & PASSWORD to your MySQL login credentials.
Change email@domain.com to your email which can accept large attachments (gmail is recommended, currently it accepts attachments up to 25MBs)
Put the following line in your crontab. you can access crontab by this command : crontab -e

0 0 * * * mysqldump --user=USERNAME --password=PASSWORD -A | bzip2 > ~/AllDBsBackup.bz2 && echo | mutt -a ~/AllDBsBackup.bz2 -s "All DBs Daily Backup" -- email@domain.com

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July 12, 2009

Backup Your Data in Linux by sending them to your GMail

Filed under: CentOS,Debian,General,Security — Tags: backup, email, gmail, linux — admin @ 8:33 am

A very effective way for backing up your data on a Linux server is to set a cron job on your box to mail your data to your GMail account. GMail servers are very reliable and give you a huge amount of space for free. so they are pretty suitable for backing up sensitive data.
In order to accomplish this , first create a directory named “backup” in the root directory of your box :

cd / && mkdir backup

then you need to create a script to do the backup and mail it for you.

nano /usr/bin/backup

copy and paste the following into the file :

cd /backup
rm -rf /backup/*
cp LIST_OF_FILES .
tar jcf backup.tar.bz2 *
echo | mutt -a backup.tar.bz2 -s "my daily backup" -- adminsehow@gmail.com

you have to change LIST_OF_FILES string to the list of the files you want to be backed up separated by space , and change adminsehow@gmail.com to your own gmail account.
as you can see in the script we are compressing the data files to make them as small as possible.
also we are using “mutt” to send emails so you need to install it , in Debian you can install it by following command :

apt-get install mutt

make the script executable :

chmod +x /usr/bin/backup

lastly you need to set a cron job , so open the cron file by following command :

crontab -e

and copy and paste the following command into it :

0 0 * * * /usr/bin/backup

it will run your backup script once daily
also don’t forget you need to have a working smtp server on your Linux box.

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June 17, 2009

MySQL Backup/Restore from command line

Filed under: CentOS,Debian,General,MySQL — Tags: backup, dump, MySQL, restore — admin @ 2:48 pm

Backup

Dump ALL MySQL Databases

mysqldump --user=XXXXXXXX --password=XXXXXXX -A > /PATH/TO/DUMPFILE.SQL

Dump Individual or Multiple MySQL Databases

mysqldump --user=XXXXXXXX --password=XXXXXXX DB_NAME1 DB_NAME2 DB_NAME3 > /PATH/TO/DUMPFILE.SQL

Dump only certain tables from a MySQL Database

mysqldump --user=XXXXXXXX --password=XXXXXXXX DB_NAME --tables TABLE_NAME > /PATH/TO/DUMPFILE.SQL

Restore

mysql --user=XXXXXXXX --password=XXXXXXXX DB_NAME < /PATH/TO/DUMPFILE.SQL

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