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Work In Progress
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Have you been backing up your current ownCloud instance? If not, perhaps it's time? Think of all that time spent doing the setup and all that important data now stored in your ownCloud. Do you really want to take a chance losing the ownCloud configuration and all that stored data? Don't make it a "round to it" make it a "do it".
Following information will be provided to "backup and recover" data specific to ownCloud. No attempts will be made to discuss "philosophies" for backup and recover. The rsnapshot application will be used to backup data for an ownCloud instance and stored files. rnapshot does not perform the recovery of data and files. Recovery from the data backups will be done by other methods. Additionally, information provided is based on a Fedora platform.
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ownCloud Tip!
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| Before going further please become acquainted with the "rsnapshot" Wiki article.
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Before getting started a discussion of the directories referred in this section need to be explained.
The key directories of concern are:
- The directories storing the ownCloud application binaries.
- The directories for the stored ownCloud data files.
- The backup directories for the ownCloud binaries, stored files, and the ownCloud database.
Please notice that the stored data files used in this discussion are for the default "Amahi shares" directories for the sake of keeping the discussion less confusing.
ownCloud Binary Directories
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The "web-apps" (red folder) directory structure is where application binaries for Amahi are stored. Below is the "owncloud-html branch". Under this branch is a collection of directories containing binaries for the ownCloud application. The "config" directory in particular is important as it contains files containing configuration and sharing information for an ownCloud instance. This directory is important when re-installing (recovery), updating, or upgrading (see "Upgrading ownCloud to New Version Releases") ownCloud.
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ownCloud Data Directories
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The "files" directory (red folder) referenced here is a typical Amahi shares structure. The "owncloud-data branch" is where physical files are stored in ownCloud. It is also important to note that "meta-data" for physicial files is kept in the ownCloud database (file sharing, groups). Therefore, it is important no only to backup the physical files but also the ownCloud database.
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rsnapshot Backup Directories
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The "backups" directory (red folder) shown here is located in the same filesystem location as the Amahi hda structures. This is not a recommended practice as the backups directory could be on the same hard disk(s) as the hda directories, it is only intended as an example for this article only. Normally the backups directory structure should be stored in a separate hard disk assembly (i.e. external drive) from the source hda structures.
The "daily.0" is created by the rsnapshot application to store "snapshot-like" backups. This particular directory name is typical of the doing a "daily" backup with rsnapshot. The directories "daily.x" and "daily.y" are just pseudo names where each value of x and y are normally numbers indicating later version numbers of rnsapshot backup sets. If rsnapshot daily backups are set for a 7 day retention the numbering would be 0 to 6, where daily.0 is the most recent backup set and 6 the latest set.
Below each "daily.?" backup set a directory (green folder) is created, normally intended for identifying a server name (default is localhost), for the purpose of this example "owncloud" is treated as the "server". Under the "owncloud server directory" structure there are branches containing backups of the ownCloud binaries, physical files, and "database dump". The "database_dump" directory contains a backup of the ownCloud database. rsnapshot can be configured to add additional branches under the owncloud server directory to store other backup data.
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Configure
This section shows how to configure rsnapshot for backing up ownCloud binaries, physical files, and the ownCloud database information based on the previous key directories discussion. Minimal information for each configuration setting will be provided. For details refer to the Amahi rsnapshot wiki article or the rnapshot web site.
Follow the following configuration steps:
- Make sure that rsnapshot is installed. Fedora and Ubuntu distributions have packages available for the software.
- Open a "terminal" session and login to the "root" user ID.
- Move to the "/var/hda" directory.
- Create the "backups" directory and set permissions/ownership.
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cd /var/hda mkdir backups chmod 755 backups chown root:root backups
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- Move to the "/etc" directory.
- Make a backup copy of the rsnapshot configuration file. Why? So that there is a reference just in case.
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cp rsnapshot.conf rsnapshot.conf.bkup
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- Now using a favourite editor, open the "rnapshot.conf" file.
Please Note: Items in the configuration files are separated by "tab" characters and NOT multiple spaces.
- Find the "SNAPSHOT ROOT DIRECTORY" section and change "snapshot_root" to path where the backups will be stored.
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snapshot_root /var/hda/backups/
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- Find the "BACKUP INTERVALS" section and change the line items. What does this all mean? The "#" character at the beginning of each line means the configuration line item will not be enabled. The "#" is know to set a line to be a "comment" line. The "internal daily" line will be active and 7 days of backups will be kept.
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#interval hourly 6 interval daily 7 #interval weekly 4 #interval monthly 1
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- Find the "logfile" line and change the line item. The rsnapshot log file will be kept under the "backups" directory.
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logfile /var/hda/backups/logs/rsnapshot
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- Find the "BACKUP POINTS / SCRIPTS" section. Add changes as seen below. This is the section that defines the "key directories" source that will be backed up. See the "owncloud/" at the end of each line? Remember the previous "green" server folder? This is where the ownCloud binaries and physical files will be stored.
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backup /var/hda/files/ owncloud/ backup /var/hda/web-apps/owncloud/ owncloud/
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- Next find the line "" change as shown below. This set the location where the ownCloud "database dump" backup will be kept. Also the line shows the execution path for the database backup program script file that performs the database backup.
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backup_script /usr/local/bin/backup_mysql.sh owncloud/database_dump
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- Save the "rsnapshot.conf" file and return to the command-line prompt.
- Next database backup program script file has to be set up.
- Copy database backup script to the "/usr/local/bin/".
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cp /usr/share/doc/rsnapshot/examples/utils/backup_mysql.sh /usr/local/bin/
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- Go to the "/usr/local/bin/" directory and set the script file permissions and ownership.
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cd /usr/local/bin/ chown root:root /usr/local/bin/backup_mysql.sh chmod 754 /usr/local/bin/backup_mysql.sh
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- Edit the "backup_mysql.sh" file.
- Find the line "backup the database" and add the line has shown below. This will be the command that will be issued to do the database backup. The database dump file will be called "owncloud_db.sql".
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/usr/bin/mysqldump -uowncloud -powncloud owncloud > owncloud_db.sql
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- Find the line "# make the backup readable only by root" and add the line shown below.
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/bin/chmod 600 owncloud_db.sql
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- Save the "backup_mysql.sh" file and return to the command-line prompt.
- There rsnapshot is configured to backup ownCloud.
Test
rsnapshot configtest
Syntax OK
Backup
<information coming soon>
Recover
