{{NeedsUpdate}}[http://rsnapshot.org/ '''''rnapshotrsnapshot'''''] is an excellent backup application and has been around for a long time and is extremely stable.  Why are backups important? Well, hardware failures, accidental file deletion(s), files become corrupted, etc.. Backups can help recover data where applications are being updated/upgraded. Enough reasons?  Where should backups be stored? Due to the inevitable failure of hardware it is desirable to store backups on a separate system from where the production data is stored. Or possibly to an external medium such as an external USB disk drive. This article discusses doing backups backing up to an external USB drive that is formatted for the "ext3" filesystem type.

=Quick == Preparing an External USB Drive === Off-the-shelf external USB drives normally are setup to work with computers that utilize CIFS type filesystems. rsnapshot Recipeuses a "hard links" feature that is unique to Linux/Unix filesystems (ext3). "Hard Links" are not supported on filesystems such as: '''"smbfs"''', '''"Samba (SMB)"''', '''"FAT"''', '''"FAT32"''', '''"NTFS"''', '''"CIFS"''', '''"vfat"'''. Please note that "Amahi Greyhole" mounts Amahi shares that will look like "local disk drives" '''''but''''' these are Samba (SMB) mounted shares. An external disk drive will have to be prepared for a Linux/Unix filesystem, in particular ext3. Why? ext3 has been around for sometime, is stable, and "Windows" computers have Open Source drivers available that can be installed to gain access to an ext3 drive. Prepare an external drive for ext3 as follows: * The external USB drive used in this example is a 1 Terabyte (1 TB) Seagate drive.* Plug the drive in to a USB connector and power it up.* Using a "terminal" session, login in using the "root" user ID.* The "device name" of the drive needs to be determined.  Enter the following command: dmesg The following information is displayed:<pre>[11122.304178] usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd[11122.422152] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2, idProduct=3320[11122.422165] usb 2-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1[11122.422173] usb 2-4: Product: Expansion Desk[11122.422180] usb 2-4: Manufacturer: Seagate . . . . .[11123.516813] sdb: sdb1</pre>* The "device name" is "sdb1".* The USB drive needs to be "unmounted".  umount /dev/sdb1 * Format drive for ext3 filesystem and set drive label name as "usbdisk".  mkfs -t ext3 -v -L usbdisk /dev/sdb1  :'''Please Note: THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON /dev/sdb1, MAKE SURE THIS IS THE CORRECT USB DRIVE AND NOT ANOTHER DRIVE.''' The following information is displayed:<pre>mke2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)fs_types for mke2fs.conf resolution: 'ext3'Filesystem label=usbdiskOS type: Linux . . . . .Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done</pre>* Whenever a drive is formatted in Linux, about 5% is reserved of the total space on the drive for the operating system to continue using the hard drive to operate, even if it gets full. This is totally unnecessary for a USB external hard drive if it stores only data and not to run an operating system.  Enter the following to remove the reserved space: tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdb1 The following information is displayed: tune2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012) Setting reserved blocks percentage to 0% (0 blocks) * The external drive is now ready for use. === Mounting an External USB Drive === There are two methods of mounting an external USB drive. The first, mounts the drive automatically each time the server "boots" or "reboots". The second, is mounted manually by the "root" user via the "command-line". Before proceeding a couple of information items need to be gathered: * In the previous section the device name found found via the "dmesg" command. The device name found was "sdb1".* We set the set the external drive's "label". It was set to "usbdisk".  To find the label at anytime via the "root" user ID enter: e2label /dev/sdb1 The following information is displayed: usbdisk Both methods of mounting will be controlled by the server's "fstab" configuration file. The fstab (a.k.a. file systems table) file is a system configuration file containing lists of available disks and disk partitions, and indicates how they are to be initialized or otherwise integrated into a system's file system. When the "mount" command is used, the fstab file is read to determine which options should be used when mounting a specified device.  ==== Auto-Mounting ==== Auto-mount of an external USB drive will occur when a server "boots" or "reboots". Provided the fstab configuration file is properly configured. A powered up USB drive that is plugged in after a server has completed the boot process is not auto-mounted. However, using a "terminal" session with the "root" user ID, and issuing a "mount -a" command will mount an external USB drive. Configure fstab to auto-mount an external USB drive do the following: * Start a "terminal" session login to the "root" user ID. * Navigate to the "etc" directory with the "cd" command and make a backup of the current fstab file. cd /etc cp /fstab /fstab_bak * Using a preferred file editor (i.e. vi, nano), open the fstab file. fstab * Near the bottom of the and after the other fstab entries, add the following:  LABEL=usbdisk /media/usbdisk ext3 defaults 0 0 * Now save the fstab file and exit the editor.* Navigate to the /media directory and create a "usbdisk" directory. This is where the external drive will be mounted, this is called a "mount point". cd /media mkdir usbdisk

Here * Make sure the external drive USB cable is connected to the server and is powered up.* Reboot the server.* Remember the disk label set earlier when formatting the drive? During the boot process when the "LABEL" is read, this instructs the system to find a quick recipe hard disk with the label "usbdrive", and then mounts it to configure rsnapshotthe mount point, "/media/usbdisk".

These are ==== Manual Mounting ====Mount of an external USB drive will not occur when a server "boots" or "reboots" when the critical settings fstab configuration file is configured for manual mounting. A powered up USB drive that is plugged in /etc/rsnapshotafter a server has completed the boot process is also not mounted.conf:

snapshot_root /mnt/1tb-Configure fstab for a manual mounting of an external/snapshots/ interval daily 14 interval weekly 4 interval monthly 4USB drive with the following:

This will create * Start a series of directories called daily.0 through daily.13weekly.0 to weekly.3 ... etc"terminal" session login as the "root" user ID.

=Another example * Navigate to the "etc" directory with the "cd" command and make a backup of rsnapshot configuration on amahi 5the current fstab file.1= cd /etc cp /fstab /fstab_bak

In this example automated backups are made to an external usb drive* Using a preferred file editor (i.e. vi, nano), open the fstab file.Plug in the USB drive, it will probably mount automatically under /media/yourdisklabel nano fstab

* Now save the fstab file and exit the editor.* Navigate to the /media directory and create a "usbdisk" directory. This is where the external drive will be mounted, this is called a "mount point". cd /media mkdir usbdrive* Make sure the external drive USB cable is connected to the server and is powered up.* Reboot the server.* Start a "terminal" session login as the "root" user ID.* To manually mount the external drive issue the following command: mount -L usbdisk* The system reads the fstab, when it finds a line entry with the label "usbdrive", it mounts the drive the mountpoint, "/media/usbdisk".

=Format usb disk=You need to format (ext3, ext4) an With both mounting methods the external USB disk drive for rsnapshot to work. rsnapshot uses a "hard links" feature that is unique to Linux/Unix filesystems. "Hard Links" are not supported on filesystems such ascan be unmounted by the following: '''"smbfs"''', '''"Samba (SMB)"''', '''"FAT"''', '''"FAT32"''', '''"NTFS"''', '''"CIFS"''', '''"vfat"'''. Also "Amahi Greyhole" can "mount" Amahi shares that look like "local disk drives" these are Samba (SMB) mounted shares.

* Start a "terminal" session login as the "root" user ID.* Issue the following command to unmount the external drive: umount /media/yourdisklabel usbdrive* Should an error occur indicating that the drive is busy and cannot be unmounted enter the command below. Then try the unmount command again. fuser -km /media

=Install rsnapshot=: yum install rsnapshot

* Now create the directory structures for storing the backups:mkdir -p /media/usbdisk/.private/.snapshots

: mkdir -p /media/usbdisk/.private/.snapshots chmod 0700 /media/usbdisk/.private/ chmod 0755 /media/usbdisk/.private/.snapshots/

:chmod 0755 /media/usbdisk/=== Configuring rsnapshot ===This section shows how to configure the rsnapshot.private/conf configuration file.snapshots/

=Mount your usbdisk permanently=To Mount your usbdisk permanently (so the backup will work after * Open a reboot) do "terminal" session and login to the following:"root" user ID.

:cp * Move to the "/etc/fstab /etc/fstab_bak" directory.

:nano cd /etc/fstab

Add to this * Make a backup copy of the rsnapshot configuration file. Why? So that there is a reference just in case.

Save * Now using a favourite editor, open the "rnapshot.conf" file.<br/>'''Please Note:''' Items in the configuration file are separated by "tab" characters and NOT multiple spaces. nano rsnapshot.conf

=Modify rsnapshot configuration=:nano /etc/rsnapshot* Find the "SNAPSHOT ROOT DIRECTORY" section and change "snapshot_root" to path where the backups will be stored.conf

make the following modifications to the file rsnapshot snapshot_root /media/usbdisk/.conffor blank spaces use TABS!private/.snapshots/}}

:snapshot_root /media/usbdisk/* Find the "no_create_root" section and remove the "#".private/This will allow rsnapshot to create the "snapshot root" directory.snapshots/

: no_create_root 1

:* 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. Remove the "#" character as required. For example, when enabled the "interval hourly 6daily" line will be active and 7 days of backups will be kept.

: interval hourly 6 interval daily 7 interval weekly 4 interval monthly 12

* Find the "GLOBAL OPTIONS" section. This section defines how much information will be saved in the rsnapshot "log" file. The options are:interval weekly Verbose level, 1 through 5. 1 Quiet Print fatal errors only 2 Default Print errors and warnings only 3 Verbose Show equivalent shell commands being executed 4 Extra Verbose Show extra verbose information 5 Debug mode EverythingChange the following options as required: verbose 3 loglevel 3

:backup * Find the "BACKUP POINTS /varSCRIPTS" section. Add changes as seen below. This is the section that defines the "key directories" that will be backed up. Please note the "localhost/hda", this represents the server that it being backed up. "localhost/files/docs/ localhost" is a default name given to the current server. Change this name as required, say "amahiBox/"?

: backup /var/hda/files/docs/ localhost/ backup /var/hda/files/pictures/ localhost/ backup /var/hda/files/movies/ localhost/ backup /var/hda/files/music/ localhost/ backup /var/hda/files/other_shares_you_made localhost/

* When the test completes the following should be displayed:rsnapshot configtest

this should return: syntax Syntax OK

:cp /usr/share/doc/rsnapshot*/utils/rsnapreportUsing a "terminal" session and "root" user ID a "cron job" configuration can be created to perform automated backups.pl /rootCreate a "cronjobs" text file as follows: crontab -l > cronjobs

:chmod 744 rsnapreport* Using a favourite text editor open the cronjobs file.pl

* Add to the cronjobs file for rsnapshot:crontab -l > cronjobs

add to this file for running 0 */4 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly 30 23 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot daily 00 23 * * 1 /usr/bin/rsnapshot and a weekly email report on 30 22 1 * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot:monthly

:0 */4 * Save the cronjobs file.* * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly 2>&1 | /Now update the "root/rsnapreport.pl > /root/rsnapreport" user IDs "crontab" with the following:

:00 23 * * 1 /usr/bin/Reboot the server and rsnapshot weeklywill be operational.

===Email reporting===* To email a report of backups:30 22 1 * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot monthly

:00 22 * * 6 cp /usr/binshare/doc/rsnapshot du >> */rootutils/rsnapreport | nail –r "somereturnadress@provider.com" -s"HDA backup report" -S smtp=smtp.yourprovider.com youremail@provider.com < pl /root/ chmod 744 rsnapreport.pl'''*''' above indicates an rsnapshot version number

Save * Add the filefollowing to crontab for a weekly email report on rsnapshot:

<pre style="white-space:crontab cronjobspre-wrap; word-break: keep-all;">0 */4 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly 2>&1 | /root/rsnapreport.pl > /root/rsnapreport00 22 * * 6 /usr/bin/rsnapshot du >> /root/rsnapreport | nail –r "somereturnadress@provider.com" -s"HDA backup report" -S smtp=smtp.yourprovider.com youremail@provider.com < /root/rsnapreport</pre>

Rsnapshot should now be operational'''Please Note:''' The above information maybe out of date due to technology changes. Please feel to update as required.

===Make your backups available on clients (READ ONLY)===

: chkconfig nfs --level 2345 on

: nano /etc/exports

: /media/usbdisk/.private/.snapshots/ 127.0.0.1(ro,no_root_squash)

: nano /etc/rc.local

: mount -r -t nfs localhost:/media/usbdisk/.private/.snapshots/ /var/hda/files/backup/