Oct
19
2009
Cron Task For Automated Backups
By SD
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| What we’re going to cover in this tutorial, is how to set up a cron job on a Centos 5 linux server. The basic problem I had, was that our server’s /backup/cpbackup/ folder was getting filled with (automated) backups very fast, taking up tonnes of disk space very quickly (only 7.5GB total available on this VPS! – perhaps time to look for a better one?). We’ll learn how to use cron jobs here to achieve the following: |
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- Execute a script at a specified time once a week, which peforms the following:
- Create a zipped-tar backup of the folder /backup/cpbackup/ at /backup/cpbackup_ddmmyy.tar.gz
- Clear the entire /backup/cpbackup/ folder of all contents, freeing up this space
- Email the administrator that the new backup_x.tar.gz file has been created
- (Optionally): Automatically copy this file over to another (larger capacity) server
Step 1: Install A Cron Task
A great little tutorial showing exactly how easy it is to install a cron task on any linux system, can be found here.
Step 2: Create the Shell Script
The script which performs the magic, looks like this:
#!/bin/sh # Create a zipped-tar backup of the folder /backup/cpbackup/ at /backup/cpbackup_ddmmyy.tar.gz # Clear the entire /backup/cpbackup/ folder of all contents, freeing up this space # Email the administrator that the new backup_x.tar.gz file has been created # (Optionally): Automatically copy this file over to another (larger capacity) server EMAIL="youremail@gmail.com" NOW=$(date +"%d-%b-%y_%H%M") BFILE="/backup/wz_cbackup_$NOW.tar.gz" MSG="" SUBJECT="" #create tar zip file: tar -czf $BFILE /backup/cpbackup/ if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then MSG="tar -czf $BFILE /backup/cpbackup/ failed." SUBJECT="weeklyZip: $BFILE creation failed!" else MSG="$BFILE successfully created. Please either download or copy to new server." SUBJECT="weeklyZip: $BFILE successfully created." #Success, so we clear out the /backup/cpbackup/ folder: rm -R /backup/cpbackup/* -f fi /bin/mail -s "$SUBJECT" "$EMAIL" <<< "$MSG"