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1 Backing up a Server Remotely Using Minimal Bandwidth
2 ====================================================
3 :author: Aaron Ball
4 :email: nullspoon@iohq.net
5
6 The server that runs this website (and a lot of others) also runs a lot of
7 other services such as an IRC server, a Jabber server, NGINX (of course), and
8 various other things. I like to take a lot of backups, especially since I'm not
9 the best person in the area of security. With that, my old way of backing my my
10 server was relatively painful. I had a script that tarred and compressed each
11 service directory individually and move it to a secure location on my web
12 server for download. After download, the script would remove the backup, and
13 continue to the next.
14
15 The problem with this method is that it consumes a lot of bandwidth and time.
16 By the time I have downloaded everything, I have used up several gigabytes of
17 bandwidth. I don't mind so much about the bandwidth though. What's important
18 is the time and interraction it takes.
19
20
21 [[enter-the-light-bulb...]]
22 == Enter the Light Bulb...
23
24 I've been using rsync for some time now to mirror my laptop to my server
25 at home. For some reason, it never occurred to me to use rsync with a
26 private key to log in to my server and download the deltas to my local
27 machine. If I want a single compressed tar file for a backup, all I have
28 to do is backup my local server's copy of everything rather than doing
29 it on my web server and downloading that. Ending this already too long
30 blog post on this simple topic, here's the rsync command I'm using...
31
32 ----
33 sync -avP --delete --chmod=g+rx --rsh="ssh -p1234 -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pdeb.user" user@server.net:/dir1 /home/server/dir1
34 ----
35
36
37 [[a-quick-explanation]]
38 == A Quick Explanation
39
40 * *rsync -avP* uses default rsync settings (-a), specifies verbose mode
41 (-v) and sets rsync to display its progress on each individual file as it goes
42 (-P).
43
44 * *--delete* option, rsync will delete files on the destination if they
45 deleted on the source (this isn't default).
46
47 * *--chmod=g+rx* sets the group settings on the destination to group
48 with read and write. This is handy if you want to access the backups from
49 another account that doesn't have access on the server too. This switch is not
50 necessary.
51
52 * *--rsh="ssh -p1234 -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.user"* specifies a custom port to
53 connect on (port 1234 in this case) and specifies a private key to use when
54 attempting to log in.
55
56 * *user@server.net:dir1 /home/server/dir1* is the host (server) to
57 connect to along with the user to try (user), the source directory (:/dir) and
58 the destination directory (/home/server/dir1).
59
60
61 Category:Linux
62 Category:Backups
63 Category:SSH
64
65
66 // vim: set syntax=asciidoc:
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