This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Basic website and database backups with Duplicity Author : Remy van Elst Date : 15-02-2013 URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Website-and-database-backup-with-Duplicity.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- This tutorial will show you how you can back up your website and database with Duplicity. [Duplicity][1] is a very useful tool to make remote unassisted backups. The backups can be incremental, encrypted, and over a variety of transports.

Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below:

I'm developing an open source monitoring app called Leaf Node Monitoring, for windows, linux & android. Go check it out!

Consider sponsoring me on Github. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs.

You can also sponsor me by getting a Digital Ocean VPS. With this referral link you'll get $100 credit for 60 days.

There are a few steps involved in the process of setting this up, and also a few preconditions: * The tutorial works best with a VPS, were you have full root access to the filesystem and database * The tutorial is targeted at debian/ubuntu, but with adaption of commands will work under CentOS/RHEL. * You need an off-site location to store the backups (other vps for example) ### Basic web application backup First I'll try to educate you a little bit with some theory. This tutorial works for all web applications, since they almost all share the same common structure: * source code (.php files, .js files (node), .rb files (rails) etc.) * database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB etc.) * configuration (apache config, nginx config, mysql config, application config) We are going to back up files. Two of the three things above are already files, and the database will be exported to a file. The database will be exported so that it can be imported again using native tools (mysqldump, mongodump etc.), since just copying the database folders and files will almost always result in a corrupted database. Duplicity has a few advantages to other backup tools and scripts: * Incremental backups (Saving size) * A lot of storage options (ssh, rsync, ftp, amazon S3, IMAP, google drive and more.) * Encryption built in * Easy to set up and maintain. I myself have the following set up for almost all of my web application backups: * Shell script to export the databases * Duplicity backing up the files to a "storage" VPS * The storage vps is just a server with a lot of HDD space doing nothing else. * Some apps back up daily, some hourly and some weekly. ### Your situation For this tutorial I'm going to backup a basic Joomla website. Joomla is a PHP/MySQL CMS. The files are located in `/var/www/joomla`, and the MySQL database is named `db_054`. I'm also giving the same examples for a Node.js application using mongodb. The path for that application is `/home/appusr/www/` and that database is named `uptime`. You will have to know some things yourself: * Where is the application located (`/var/www/joomla`) * What database am I using (`MySQL, MongoDB`) * How do I export that database (`mysqldump, mongodump`) * How do I restore that database (`mongorestore`) In this example we will use `mysqldump` to backup the MySQL database, and use duplicity to backup the database dumps, the `/var/www/joomla` folder and the `/etc/apache2` folder (which has the webserver configuration). If this site ran over SSL then I would also backup the folder where my SSL certificate was. We are going to put it all in a cronjob, which runs every 8 hours. We will also have a full weekly backup, via another cron job. ### Software Make sure you have the required software installed: sudo apt-get install duplicity gzip python python-paramiko #### MySQL The mysqldump command to backup the database: mysqldump --single-transaction --routines --events --triggers --add-drop-table --extended-insert -u db_054_u -h 127.0.0.1 -pMyDatabsePassw0rd db_054 | gzip -9 > /var/backups/sql/db_054_$(date +"%H:%M_%d-%m-%Y").sql.gz You will have to replace the `-u db_054_u` with your database user, the `-pMyDatabasePassw0rd` with your database password and `db_054` with the name of your database. The above line will result in a file named like this: `db_054_15:28_16-02-2013.sql.gz` in the folder `/var/backups/sql`. You will need to create that folder and make sure you have write permissions to it. #### MongoDB For Mongodb I use the `mongodump` command to create a backup of that database: mongodump --host 127.0.0.1:28017 --db uptime --user uptime_u --password uptime_password --out /var/backups/mongo/ Note that if you want to backup all mongodb databases you can omit the `--db database` option. Again replace the corresponding options with your values, and make sure the `/var/backups/mongo` folder exists and is writable to you. #### Duplicity Note: I will not cover the setup of encrypted backups with Duplicity. My backups go to a trusted server (located at my home). If you need that because you are backing up to S3, use a search engine to find tutorials on how to set up that. First we need to create a ssh key to use. We do this with the `ssh-keygen` program: ~$ ssh-keygen -C 'Duplicity Backup Key' Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/remy/.ssh/id_rsa): /home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa. Your public key has been saved in /home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa.pub. Make sure you do not enter a passphrase. If you do that, the backup process does not work unattended. Now copy over that key to your other (trusted) server: ssh-copy-id -i /home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa.pub "-p 22 trusted-backup-server.org" And test if you can login without a password with that key: ssh -i /home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa -p 22 remy@trusted-backup-server.org If that all works continue. We are now going to set up duplicity. I use the following command to back up all the folders: duplicity incremental --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/sql" --include="/etc/apache2/" --include="/var/www/joomla" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/joomla/ If you need to backup more folders, add another `--include="/path/to/folder"` option. The `--exclude="**" /` option is a trick to backup everything which is in the include list and nothing else. For the Node.js/Mongodb application, I would use the following command: duplicity incremental --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/mongo" --include="/home/appuser/www/" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/uptime/ ### Cron Now putting everything in a cronjob. By using the `;` character after a command, you can specify multiple commands in one cronjob which run after each other. We combine the database dump with the duplicity command to set up the back up: 10 01 * * 1,2,3,4,5,6 mysqldump --single-transaction --routines --events --triggers --add-drop-table --extended-insert -u db_054_u -h 127.0.0.1 -pMyDatabsePassw0rd db_054 | gzip -9 > /var/backups/sql/db_054_$(date +"%H:%M_%d-%m-%Y").sql.gz; duplicity incremental --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/sql" --include="/etc/apache2/" --include="/var/www/joomla" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/joomla/ This schedule will create an incremental backup every day of the week at 01:10 AM except sunday. For sunday we have a different cronjob. The only thing different is the `day of the week` and the duplicity command has the `incremental` parameter replaced by `full`. This forces duplicity to do a full backup: 10 01 * * 7 mysqldump --single-transaction --routines --events --triggers --add-drop-table --extended-insert -u db_054_u -h 127.0.0.1 -pMyDatabsePassw0rd db_054 | gzip -9 > /var/backups/sql/db_054_$(date +"%H:%M_%d-%m-%Y").sql.gz; duplicity full --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/sql" --include="/etc/apache2/" --include="/var/www/joomla" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/joomla/ For the node.js/mongodb application we use the following cronjobs: Incremental: 10 01 * * 1,2,3,4,5,6 mongodump --host 127.0.0.1:28017 --db uptime --user uptime_u --password uptime_password --out /var/backups/mongo/; duplicity incremental --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/mongo" --include="/home/appuser/www/" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/uptime/ Full on sunday: 10 01 * * 7 mongodump --host 127.0.0.1:28017 --db uptime --user uptime_u --password uptime_password --out /var/backups/mongo/; duplicity full --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --include="/var/backups/mongo" --include="/home/appuser/www/" --exclude="**" / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/uptime/ ### Restoring Now that we have backups, how do we restore them? Files can just be copied to the right place, databases need to be imported. First we get the backups from the backup server: duplicity --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" --file-to-restore / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/joomla/ If you need a backup from an earlier date: duplicity --no-encryption --ssh-options="-oProtocol=2 -oIdentityFile=/home/remy/.ssh/backup_rsa" -t 3D --file-to-restore / ssh://remy@trusted-backup-server.org:22/backups/joomla/ The `-t 3D` option means restore a backup from three days ago. Things like `-t 1M` (for one month ago) or `-t 5H` (for 5 hours ago) also work. You will now have the folders and files you backed up. Copy the files back in place using `cp`. For the databases we use their respective tools. For MySQL, first `gunzip` the archive, and then import it: gunzip db_054_15:28_16-02-2013.sql.gz And then restore it: mysql -u db_054_u -pMyDatabasePassw0rd db_054 < db_054_15:28_16-02-2013.sql For MongoDB: mongorestore mongo/ Make sure you try to restore your backups at least one or twice a month. This will make sure the backups are usable when you need them! [1]: http://duplicity.nongnu.org/ [2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: 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. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.