Linux Cpanel Backup to Amazon S3

In this article i will explain how to take cpanel backup to amazon s3(with backup rotation enabled). The step by step procedure is explained below,

Step1) Activate an account in s3. You will get an access key and secret_key after the activation.

You can create a new s3 account by following the url,

http://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/subscription/index.html?productCode=AmazonS3

Step2) Install s3 client for linux. The package name is “s3cmd-1.0.0-4.1”.

root@heuristics:~# apt-get install s3cmd

On redhat or centos based machines(using rpm packages), you can install “s3cmd” as follows,

cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://s3tools.org/repo/CentOS_5/s3tools.repo
yum install s3cmd

Alternatively, you can download it from the url pasted below:

http://s3tools.org/s3cmd

Step3) Configure s3 client using the command,

root@heuristics:~# s3cmd --configure

It will ask for the access key and secret key that we got during our account activation. This process reports failure, if we provide the wrong key values. Once this step is completed,  the configuration will be stored inside the file “/root/.s3cfg”.

During configuration you will be asked whether to enable encryption or not. Enabling encryption will improve the security of transfer but will make the upload a little bit slower.

Step4) We need to create buckets in s3 for storing the backup.

eg: creating a bucket named “Backup_daily”,

root@heuristics:~# s3cmd mb s3://Backup_daily

For additional options refer the url,

http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2010/02/s3cmd-notes/

Step5) Enable daily backup from WHM. Refer the url pasted below for reference,

http://docs.cpanel.net/twiki/bin/view/AllDocumentation/WHMDocs/ConfigBackup

If backup is already configured, then we can know the location of the backup using the command,

root@heuristics:~#grep BACKUPDIR /etc/cpbackup.conf
BACKUPDIR /backup
root@heuristics:~#

Inside “/backup” there will be another directory named “cpbackup”, which will be holding the daily,weekly and monthly backup’s. In my case,

root@heuristics:~# ls /backup/cpbackup/
./  ../  daily/  monthly/  weekly/
root@heuristics:~#

Step6) Create log directories,

root@heuristics:~# mkdir /var/log/backuplogs
root@heuristics:~#

Step7) Write a script to automate the backup, and save it as “/root/dailybackup.sh” . In the script pasted below, the backup rotation degree is set as 3(“DEGREE=3” , line16). This means that, 3 days old backup will be deleted automatically. You can increase this backup retention period by adjusting the “DEGREE” variable in line16.

#!/bin/bash

##Notification email address
_EMAIL=your_email@domain.com

ERRORLOG=/var/log/backuplogs/backup.err`date +%F`
ACTIVITYLOG=/var/log/backuplogs/activity.log`date +%F`

##Directory which needs to be backed up
SOURCE=/backup/cpbackup/daily

##Name of the backup in bucket
DESTINATION=`date +%F`

##Backup degree
DEGREE=3

#Clear the logs if the script is executed second time
:> ${ERRORLOG}
:> ${ACTIVITYLOG}

##Uploading the daily backup to Amazon s3
/usr/bin/s3cmd -r put ${SOURCE} s3://Backup_daily/${DESTINATION}/ 1>>${ACTIVITYLOG} 2>>${ERRORLOG}
ret2=$?

##Sent email alert
msg="BACKUP NOTIFICATION ALERT FROM `hostname`"

if [ $ret2 -eq 0 ];then
msg1="Amazon s3 Backup Uploaded Successfully"
else
msg1="Amazon s3 Backup Failed!!\n Check ${ERRORLOG} for more details"
fi
echo -e "$msg1"|mail -s "$msg" ${_EMAIL}

#######################
##Deleting backup's older than DEGREE days
## Delete from both server and amazon
#######################
DELETENAME=$(date  --date="${DEGREE} days ago" +%F)

/usr/bin/s3cmd -r --force del s3://Backup_daily/${DELETENAME} 1>>${ACTIVITYLOG} 2>>${ERRORLOG}

Step8) Grant execute privilege for the script and schedule it to run everyday,

root@heuristics:~# chmod u+x /root/dailybackup.sh
root@heuristics:~# cp -p /root/dailybackup.sh /etc/cron.daily/
root@heuristics:~#

NOTE:

Or if you wish to start the amazon s3 backup script right after the cpanel backup process, then create a cpanel post backup hook named “/scripts/postcpbackup” with the following contents,

#!/usr/bin/perl
system(“/root/dailybackup.sh”);

The post backup hook will start the amazon s3 backup script right after every cpanel backup completion.

In case of disasters we can download the backup from the bucket using the same s3cmd tool.

root@heuristics:~# mkdir restore
root@heuristics:~# s3cmd -r get s3://Backup_daily/2011-02-32  restore