Ubuntu Manpage: vbackup - A modular backup program

NAME

       vbackup - A modular backup program

SYNOPSIS

          vbackup [OPTIONS] [ --check ] [strategy] level
          vbackup [OPTIONS] { --list | --help [module] | --version | --init }
          vbackup [OPTIONS] --rc --list [strategy] [level]
          vbackup [OPTIONS] --rc --init strategy
          vbackup [OPTIONS] --rc { --add | --delete } [strategy] config
          vbackup [OPTIONS] --rc { --enable | --disable } [strategy] config

DESCRIPTION

       vbackup  is a program that performs system backups.  The backup strategy is specified with
       a set of minimal configuration files that exist in directories under /etc/vbackup. See the
       quickstart section for quick first-time setup.

       The full documentation of vbackup is available online at http://vbackup.readthedocs.org

OPTIONS

       -d <level>
              Set  the  message  level  to  <level>  (default level is 8): 1: Fatal, 2: Error, 3:
              Warning, 4: Note, 5-7: Information (5: Rare messages, 6: Useful message, 7: Not  so
              useful), 10-14: Debug messages that don't flood, 15-19: Debug messages that flood

        --dir <directory>
              Set  the configuration directory. This is only useful in case you want to implement
              (e.g.) user backups, so each user may have her own configuration directory.

COMMANDS

       In all commands below: <strategy> refers to the name of  a  backup  strategy  (e.g.  test,
       remote,  etc). <level> refers to the backup level that is to be performed. <config> refers
       to a configuration file name and it is in the  form  XX-NAME.TYPE  or  XX-NAME-LEVEL.TYPE,
       where  XX  is  a  number  indicating  a  priority,  NAME is an arbitrary name, LEVEL is an
       optional backup level (0-9) and TYPE is  the  corresponding  module  name  (e.g.  xfsdump)
       (example:  50-home.xfsdump,  20-mbr-0.mbr,  10-remote.nfsmount, etc). <module> refers to a
       module name (e.g. xfsdump)

       --check [<strategy>] [<level>]
              Check configuration files for a specific backup strategy. Each  module  checks  its
              own  configuration  file.  If strategy is omitted then the default strategy will be
              checked. If level is provided then only config files that apply to that level  will
              be checked.

       --list List all available modules, their version and a brief description.

       --help [<module>]
              Show  some  help.  If a module is passed as argument then it will display some help
              about that module. This is where the module configuration parameters are shown.

       --version
              Guess what...

       --init Shortcut for --rc --init.

       --rc --list [<stategy>] [<level>]
              List the configuration of a certain backup strategy. If  level  is  specified  then
              only list configuration that applies to that level. If strategy is omitted the look
              for the default strategy. This similar to looking at the directories with ls.

       --rc --init <strategy>
              Create/initialize a new backup strategy. It will ask a couple of questions and then
              it  will create the directory and populate it with a vbackup.conf file based on the
              answers.

       --rc --add [<strategy>] <config>
              Add a new configuration file to a certain backup  strategy  (or  to  the  default).
              config is the file name and must be in the form XX-NAME.TYPE or XX-NAME-LEVEL.TYPE,
              as described above.

       --rc --delete [<strategy>] <config>
              Delete an existing configuration file from a strategy.

       --rc --enable [<strategy>] <config>
              Enable a previously disabled configuration file by removing the .off extension.

       --rc --disable [<strategy>] <config>
              Disable a configuration file for a backup strategy by appending the .off extension.

QUICKSTART

       Use the vbackup-wizard(8) for quickstarting. Most probably that's what  you  will  do  the
       first time.

CONFIGURATION

       The  backup  strategy is specified with a set of minimal configuration files that exist in
       directories under /etc/vbackup. Each directory is named rc.XXXXX.d where XXXXX is the name
       of the backup strategy. There's also the default strategy that's using the directory rc.d.

       For most setups the default strategy should suffice.

       Each  strategy  must  contain a vbackup.conf file that specifies some global configuration
       options (like a destination  directory).   Next,  it  must  contain  one  or  more  module
       configuration  files.   The available modules can be seen using the --list parameter.  The
       files in there are in the form XX-NAME.TYPE or XX-NAME-LEVEL.TYPE, where XX  is  a  number
       indicating  order,  NAME  is an arbitrary name, LEVEL is an optional level and TYPE is the
       name of the module that will be invoked.  If LEVEL is specified then this config file will
       only apply to that LEVEL.

BACKUP

       After having defined at least one strategy you can perform that backup by running "vbackup
       <level>" or "vbackup <strategy> <level>".  This will first source the vbackup.conf and  it
       will  then  check  for  existing configuration files.  For each one that is found, it will
       determine the appropriate backup module and run it.

MODULES

dpkg Backup the debian package list. Small space requirement and very useful for
restoring a debian system.

exec Execute shell commands. Allows custom things to happen between steps (e.g. creating
a tar of the whole backup directory or removing old backups).

exist Check whether a file or directory exists. This can be used to determine whether a
filesystem is actually mounted or not. It is strongly advised to use this when
you're not using mount or nfsmount!

gpg Encrypt a file or a directory using with GPG using a symmetric key. It can be used
to encrypt the whole backup before uploading the results to a remote system.

ftar (DEPRECATED)
Use tar to backup a filesystem but use find to locate the files to backup. This is
similar to the tar method but is not that good for incremental backups. If you
restore a system that was incrementally backed up using this method it will have
all files that were deleted between intermediate backups too. The advantage of this
method is that you can use regular expressions to filter files that will be backed
up.

mbr Backup MBRs from all disks and their Partition Tables. It will also backup MD and
LVM information if any of those is detected. Extremely useful with very low space
requirements.

md5 Calculate the md5sum of certain files. Can be used to store checksums of the backed
up files in order to be able to verify that they are not corrupted. If can also be
used to store checksums of system files.

mount Mount a local filesystem, in case you have an unmounted filesystem to perform
backups (for example a spare or external disk).

mysql Backup some or all MySQL databases.

nfsmount
Mount a remote filesystem using NFS.

off Don't do anything at all. Used for disabling configuration files. For example, if
you rename 50-main.pgsql to 50-main.pgsql.off it will remain in the configuration
directory by will be disabled.

openldap
Backup OpenLDAP database and configuration (if it's stored in LDAP).

pgsql Backup some or all PostgreSQL databases.

rm Remove a directory recursively. Useful when storing the backup to a temporary
directory before (e.g.) moving it to another system or compressing it. It can be
used to cleanup the directory tree, both before and after a backup.

rpm Backup RPM database.

scp Copy files to a remote system using scp. It will copy directories recursively so it
can be used to copy a full backup.

tar Perform incremental backups using the listed-incremental format of GNU tar. Make
sure to use the --noplugin parameter when editing tar configuration files with vim.

umount Umount a filesystem that was previously mounted. This can be used for local and
remote mounts. The configuration of this module is compatible with the
configuration of mount and nfsmount modules. This means that you can just create a
link to the coresponding mount configuration file to have it unount the filesystem.
(For example, link 00-remote.nfsmount to 99-remount.umount)

x509 Encrypt a file or a directory using an x509 certificate. This way backups can be
safely stored in remote systems.

xfsdump
Perform incremental backups using xfsdump. This is by far the very best way to
backup an XFS filesystem (as a whole). It works extremely well, it is very reliable
and it is able to do live backups. It is also very easy to restore all or part of
the backed-up data using the interactive xfsrestore utility (xfsrestore -i).

EXTENDING

       You can extend vbackup by writing simple scripts that will be combined with other scripts.
       See the online documentation for more information.

AUTHOR - COPYRIGHT

       vbackup is written  and  maintained  by  Stefanos  Harhalakis.   Copyright  (c)  2006-2016
       Harhalakis Stefanos

CONTACT

       For bugs, requests, ideas, comments and anything else (except spam) contact <v13@v13.gr>

LICENSE

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
       the GNU General Public License as  published  by  the  Free  Software  Foundation;  either
       version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

       This  program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
       without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR  PURPOSE.
       See the GNU General Public License for more details.

       If  GPLv3  doesn't fit your needs (BSD?) feel free to contact me and I may release it with
       another license too.