PartKeepr-Backup

A Linux shell script that creates a backup of a PartKeepr database and important web files. Backups are conveniently compressed using zip to date-time-stamped filenames.

Tested with PartKeepr 1.4.0 on Raspbian 9.13 (stretch)

• Author: Cabot Technologies
• Licence: MIT (see the LICENSE file)

Installation

This script is intended to work with PartKeepr 1.4.0 on Raspbian 9.13 (stretch). Ensure this is installed and running.

Install prerequisites:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git zip

Change to the home directory and clone from git:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/cabottech/PartKeepr-Backup.git

Change to the script directory and set permissions to execute the script:

cd PartKeepr-Backup
chmod +x partkeepr-backup.sh

Set the database and file properties (see Configuration for details):

nano partkeepr-backup.properties

Configuration

Settings can be modified in the partkeepr-backup.properties file.

You'll need to set the database connection and file locations properties specific to your system and installation.

Ensure the user has permissions to read/write to the backup_root_path.

Note: it is recommended that backup_root_path be set to a location not on the Raspberry Pi's SD card. A safer location for backups would be a mounted USB drive, or mounted network folder. This ensures that in the event of SD card corruption or fault, the backups aren't also lost.

How to use

From command-line

Run a backup:

cd ~/PartKeepr-Backup
./partkeepr-backup.sh

From cron

To automate the backup each day:

crontab -e

Add the following line to schedule a backup at 2:15AM each day. Adjust to your install path if needed:

15 2 * * * cd /home/pi/PartKeepr-Backup && /bin/sh ./partkeepr-backup.sh

Storing backups on a network share folder

The following is a simple example of mounting a CIFS/SAMBA network share folder and configuring this as the backup storage location.

First, create a mount location:

sudo mkdir /mnt/backups

Mount the network share folder:

Options:

• //fileserver.local/backups/PartKeepr is the path to an existing network share folder. An IP address can also be used, i.e. //192.168.1.123/backups/PartKeepr.
• username=remoteuser is to authenticate with the file server (you will be prompted for a password if applicable)
• uid=pi is to set local user pi as the owner of the share to allow read/write access.
• noexec disables executing anything from the share location (an optional safety precaution).

sudo mount -t cifs //fileserver.local/backups/PartKeepr /mnt/backups -o username=remoteuser,uid=pi,noexec

Enter your network share password when prompted.

Now that we have the network share connected, partkeepr-backup.preferences can be set accordingly. Update the backup location:

backup_root_path=/mnt/backups

Run a backup to check this is all working:

cd ~/PartKeepr-Backup
./partkeepr-backup.sh

The backup files should be now stored the network share folder.

If the network share folder is required to be auto-mounted on Raspberry Pi boot, the /etc/fstab file can be configured (this is beyond the scope of this example).

What it does

When the script partkeepr-backup.sh is run (i.e. from command-line or cronjob), backups are created, archived to ZIP, and stored as date-time-stamped files.

Backup location

Upon execution the backup path is created based on the 'backup_root_path' property. A 'Year-Month' subdirectory is created to help to keep backups organised.

Example:

• /home/pi/PartKeepr-Backup/backups/202009/

The backups and log will be stored in this directory.

Database backup

A backup of the database is done using mysqldump. This creates an SQL export of the entire PartKeepr database. This is then ZIP archived and given a date-time specific filename.

Example:

• 20200905-100952_partkeepr-database-backup.sql.zip

Filesystem backup

The data and config web directories are ZIP archived and given date-time specific filenames.

Example:

• 20200905-100952_partkeepr-data-backup.sql.zip
• 20200905-100952_partkeepr-config-backup.sql.zip

Backup log

A log of the backup process is written to the backup location.

Example:

• 20200905-100952_partkeepr-backup.log

This log details the date of the backup, files written, backup size, and duration.

Example log output:

PartKeepr Backup 0.1.3

Database backup:
Retrieving database SQL...
* Success
Compressing backup to ZIP archive...
* Success
Database backup summary:
* File name:   20210109-123514_partkeepr-database-backup.sql.zip
* File size:   70K
* Duration:    0:00:01

Web data backup:
Compressing web data to ZIP archive...
* Success
Web data backup summary:
* File name:   20210109-123514_partkeepr-data-backup.zip
* File size:   21M
* Duration:    0:00:09

Web config backup:
Compressing web config to ZIP archive...
* Success
Web config backup summary:
* File name:   20210109-123514_partkeepr-config-backup.zip
* File size:   20K
* Duration:    0:00:00

Notes / improvements / to-do

• Currently backups are full snapshots, not incremental. This is nice and simple, but uses much more backup storage. It may be worth automatically removing old backups? For the time being backup storage need to be managed by the user.
• Send backup error notifications via syslog/mail?
• Add a step-by-step guide for backup recovery.