Ubuntu Manpage: hdup.conf - the hdup configuration file

NAME

       hdup.conf - the hdup configuration file

DESCRIPTION

The configuration file syntax of hdup is borrowed from SaMBa (which is more commonly known
as an ini-style config file). A '#' as the first character on a line is the start of a
comment. Blank lines are skipped.

Multiple entries on a line must separated by commas: ",".

Some options can be turned on and off. These are binary options. All binary option default
to 'off'. They are turned on by 'yes','on' or 'true' and are turned off with 'no', 'off'
or 'false'.

The [global] section is required to be the first section in the configuration files.
Options specified under [global] are also used in [host] sections. They can overridden
when they are also specified under that [host] statement. This works for all options.
Further to this, one [host] statement can inherit from another [host] statement.

Config entries may be given multiple times, in that case the latest one is taken as the
final choice.

It is further best described by an example:

#
# backup config for hdup
#
[global]
archive dir = /tmp/storage/
compression = gzip
user = operator
proto = /usr/bin/ssh
proto option = -q -oProtocol=2
overwrite = yes

[host-name-a-conf]
dir = /var/www, /etc/cron.d

[host-name-a-root]
dir = /root/.cpan/Bundle

[host-name-a]
inherit = host-name-a-conf, host-name-a-root
allow remote = yes

[global]
The [global] section is required. The keywords specified under it are used for each host
(globally).

All keywords specified under [global] are inherited by the other hosts. Ie. if you specify
'compression = gzip' under global, all hosts who do not redefine 'compression' will use
'gzip'.

[host-name]
This is a host statement. For every host you want to back up there should be a host
statement. This is also true when you are restoring an archive.

Host statements can inherit from other host statements. Any keywords initialised for the
original host, will append to, or overwrite, the current keywords.

There is a maximum of 255 different hosts in 1 hdup configuration file.

Be aware that archive dir must be specified in the configuration file, dir is only needed
when performing backups. When restoring it is not needed.

Keywords
The following keywords are supported: algorithm, allow remote, always backup, archive dir,
chunk size, compression,compression level, date spec dir, exclude, force, free, group,
gpg, include, inherit, key, log, mcrypt, no history, ,nobackup, one filesystem, overwrite,
postrun, prerun, proto, proto option, remote hdup, remote hdup option, skip, sparse, tar,
tar option and user,

The only mandatory options are archive dir and dir. They must be present for every host.

algorithm
Optional. What algorithm should hdup use when encrypting an archive. If this is not
specified the archive will not be encrypted. Both 'algorithm' and
'key' must be present. For gpg encryption use gpg here.

allow remote
Optional, binary option. If 'on' remote archives are allowed to be uploaded from
this host, otherwise they are denied.

always backup
Optional, binary option. When 'on' hdup will always perform a backup. Normally when
an incfile is not found the backup is aborted. What this option does is that if the
backup scheme is daily and no weekly incfile is found, hdup performs a weekly
backup. If hdup discovers no monthly incfile when doing a weekly it performs a
monthly dump.

archive dir
Mandatory. Specify what directory hdup should use to store the archives and the
(incremental) dump information.

chunk size
Optional. Give the size of the chunks hdup should create when splitting up an
archive. Size can be given with the suffix 'k', 'K' or 'm', 'M'. Chunks of the
archive get the suffix '__split__XX', where XX is a two letter sequence starting by
'aa' and ending at 'zz'. To split up archive in CD sized chunks, chunk size = 640m
could be used.

compression
Optional. Specify the compression hdup should use. This can be bzip, gzip, lzop or
none. Defaults to gzip. Some explanation on the difference might be appropiate
here. bzip (which uses bzip2) is slow but compresses the best, gzip is faster but
offers less compression. lzop is the fastest of them all while offering very good
compression. none is of course the fastest.

compression level
Optional. Specify the compression level, it's an integer between 1 and 9
(inclusive), where 1 equals, fast operation, lousy compression and 9 means best
compression, but slow. When omitted it defaults to 6.

Defaults to 6, which for all compression algorithms is the standard default.

date spec
Optional. The following formats are supported:
default format will be 'DD-MM-YYYY'
iso format will be 'YYYY-MM-DD'
american format will be 'MM-DD-YYYYY'

dir Mandatory. Specify which directories or files should be backed up. You can also
specify a single file, like /usr/src/linux/.config.

There can be up to 20 different directories specified. There can only be 1 dir
statement per host.

exclude
Optional. Specify a list with a regular expressions that should be used to
determine which files should not be backed up. See regex(7) for more information
about regular expressions. Also see the section PATTERNS.

force Optional, binary option. When 'on' a restore to / will be allowed.

free Optional. With free you can specify how much free space must be available on a
partition. If this free space requirement is not met, hdup will not perform the
backup. Takes an optional size modifier: 'k', 'm' or 'G'.

gpg Optional. The path to gpg. Defaults to the value of the configure script.

group Optional. Specify the group under which the archives must be stored. Defaults to
whatever group 'user' belongs to.

include
Optional. Specify a list with a regular expressions that should be used to
determine which files should be backed up. See regex(7) for more information about
regular expressions. Also see the section PATTERNS. Included files take precedence
on exclude files.

inherit
Optional. Specify a list of hosts to inherit from. All keywords specified will
either overwrite (for single items) or append (for lists) keywords for the current
host. This allows creating specific host configurations out of common parts.

key Optional. Which file should be used as the encryption key. Both 'algorithm' and
'key' must be present. In the case where algorithm is gpg the user ID of the key
must be specified here.

log Optional, binary option. When 'on' hdup will also log to syslog. All message will
be logged under LOG_DAEMON with priority LOG_NOTICE. All errors are logged in the
following format:
FAILURE, <hostname>, <error condition>

Succes is reported as:
SUCCESS, <hostname>, <archive size>, <archive time>

If the backup is send to a remote system, <archive size> equals "remote". If the
operation is restore, then <archive size> equals "restore".

mcrypt Optional. The path to mcrypt. Defaults to the value of the configure script.

no history
Optional, binary option. When 'on' hdup will store each archive in a directory
called 'static' thereby not keeping any history of the archives. WARNING: this
option is dangerous to use. When a backup fails and you did not copy the archives
to some safe place you are left with no backups at all! A postrun script is
provided in the examples directory of the hdup source, which copies the archives to
a safe place. It is best to NOT use this option unless you know what you are
doing.

Restoring such an archive can be accomplished by using the word 'static' as the
restore date.

nobackup
Optional. The argument is a filename. When specified hdup looks for this file in
the directories it backs up. If this file is found the current directory and all
sub-directories are excluded from the backup.

one filesystem
Optional, binary option. When 'on' hdup will stay in the local file system for each
directory specified (with 'dir') when creating a backup.

overwrite
Optional, binary option. When 'on' old archives are overwritten.

postrun
Optional. Specify a command or script that be should run after hdup is finished
with the backup. The following variables can be used as arguments:
%h expands to the current host.
%a expands to the full path of the archivename of the current backup.
%s expands to the current scheme.
%u expands to the username under which the archives are stored.
%e expands to 'yes' when encryption is used, 'no' otherwise.
%c expands to 'yes' when chunksize is used, 'no' otherwise.
%g expands to the groupname under which the archives are stored.

Note: If the postrun script executes with errors the backup is not aborted. Note2:
Any arguments not defined will be expanded to '-empty', without the quotes.

prerun Optional. Specify a command or script that should run before hdup begins with the
actual backup. The following variables can be used as arguments:
%h expands to the current host.
%a expands to the full path of the archivename of the current backup.
%s expands to the current scheme.
%u expands to the username under which the archives are stored.
%e expands to 'yes' when encryption is used, 'no' otherwise.
%c expands to 'yes' when chunksize is used, 'no' otherwise.
%g expands to the groupname under which the archives are stored.

Note: If the prerun script executes with errors the backup IS aborted. Note2: Any
arguments not defined will be expanded to '-empty', without the quotes.

proto Optional. Specify the path of the program to use when transferring an archive to a
remote host. Known to work is ssh. Defaults to the value of the configure script.

These programs must be able to be used as a filter and support the user@remotehost
syntax.

Note: Be aware that this value must also be defined in the remote hdup which is
receiving the backup, although it is not used there. If you don't want to set it to
'ssh' you can use '/dev/null' or any other path.

proto option
Optional. Specify options that are given to the proto command in hdup. E.g. proto
option = -i /home/user/.ssh/identity -oProtocol=2.

remote hdup
Optional. If the @user@remotehost syntax is used this keyword specifies the
location of the remote hdup.

remote hdup option
Optional. If the @user@remotehost syntax is used this keyword specifies the options
(like the location of the config file) that should be used by the remote hdup.

skip Optional, binary option. Depricated, it is always 'on'. When 'on' the backup
directory is automaticly put in the exclude list and thus not backed up.

sparse Optional, binary option. Depricated, it is always 'on'. When 'on' hdup will use
tar's --sparse feature when backing up files.

tar Optional. The path to tar. Defaults to the value of the configure script. This tar
must support the command line syntax of GNU tar.

tar option
Optional. Specify some extra options to the tar executed by hdup. These options are
given the tar and untar commands. No extra checking is done by hdup on these
options.

user Optional. Specify the user under which the archives must be stored. Defaults to
operator.

PATTERNS

       The include and exclude keywords take regular expression as there  input.   There  is  one
       extra  rule.  If  an expression ends with a slash '/' it is only applied to directories. A
       '/' in a different place is not handled special.

       The whole pathname of a file or directory is used in the pattern  matching.   The  pattern
       matching is case sensitive.

   Examples
       To  match  all  files  ending  with .txt use the pattern .*.txt.  To match everything file
       under opt, use ^/opt. To match a specific directory in /opt,  use  ^/opt/bla/,  note  that
       this excludes all directories which start with this string.

       If  you  want to match a single directory you must supply the full pathname and a leading,
       and closing '/'.

       WHAT COMES FIRST include or exclude

AUTHOR

       Written by Miek Gieben. Wouter van Gils helped a lot with  testing  pre-release  versions.
       User feedback is appreciated.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <hdup-user@miek.n> or via the bugzilla at the homepage.

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