Ubuntu Manpage: vbackup - A modular backup program

NAME

       vbackup - A modular backup program

SYNOPSIS

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

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.

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 bellow: <name> refers to the name of a backup strategy (e.g. 0, 5,  test0,
       test5,  etc).  <config>  refers  to  a  configuration  file name and it is in the form XX-
       NAME.TYPE where XX is a number indicating a priority, NAME is an arbitrary name  and  TYPE
       is  the  coresponding  module  name  (e.g. xfsdump) (example: 50-home.xfsdump, 20-mbr.mbr,
       10-remote.nfsmount, etc). <module> refers to a module name (e.g. xfsdump)

       --check <name>
              Check configuration files for a specific backup strategy (name). Each module checks
              its own configuration file.

       --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...

       --rc --list [<name>]
              List available backup types in the rc.d directory or (if name  is  specified)  list
              enable  scripts  in  a  backup strategy. This is similar to browser the directories
              with ls.

       --rc --init <name>
              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 <config>
              Add a new configuration file to the  rc.d  directory.  It  will  ask  a  number  of
              questions and the create the configuration file based on the sample file.

       --rc --delete <config>
              Delete an existing configuration file from the rc.d directory.

       --rc --enable <config> <name>
              Enable a configuration file for a backup strategy by creating a symlink.

       --rc --disable <config> <name>
              Disable a configuration file for a backup strategy by remove the symlink.

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 backup.XXXXX where XXXXX is the
name of the backup strategy.

For example, a simplistic backup strategy may have two directories named backup.0 and
backup.5. Each of them will include configuration files that describe level 0 and level 5
system backups.

It is advised to have a directory named rc.d under /etc/vbackup that will hold all
configuration files. After that, individual backup.XXXXX directories will only contain
links to those files. It is absolutely sure that some files will be the same among
different backup strategies and trying to keep them synchronized will be an uneeded pain.

Each configuration file 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.
Each configuration file is in the form something.modulename. It is suggested that
something is in the form of NN-string where NN is a two (or more) digit number and string
is a descriptive string. For example, a good name is "00-myserver.nfsmount". This clearly
shows that a path in myserver will be mounted using nfs and it will help you when 2 years
later you'll attempt to edit those files. The number prefix helps in determining the
sorting order. All configuration files are examined in a sorted order.

The complete documentation is in the README files.

BACKUP

       After  having created at least one backup.XXXXX directory in /etc/vbackup, you can perform
       that backup by running "vbackup XXXXX". 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!

ftar Use tar to backup a filesystem but use find to locate the files to backup. This is
simillar 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 expression 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.

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. Very useful 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.

rpm Backup RPM database.

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

tar Perform incremental backups using the listed-incremental format of GNU tar. Use the
--noplugin parameter when editing tar configuration files (!!!).

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 very simple scripts that will  be  combined  with  other
       scripts. Read the README.dev file for more information and have a look at other modules.

AUTHOR - COPYRIGHT

       vbackup  is  written  and  maintained  by  Stefanos  Harhalakis.   Copyright (c) 2006-2012
       Harhalakis Stefanos

CONTACT

       For bugs, requests, ideas, comments or 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.