backupninja/docs/man/backupninja.1

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.TH BACKUPNINJA 1 "January 2, 2005" "riseup" "backupninja package"
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.SH NAME
BACKUPNINJA \- A lightweight, extensible meta-backup system
.br
.I
"a silent flower blossom death strike to lost data."
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B "backupninja [ \-h ] [ \-d ] [ \-f filename]"
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Backupninja 
allows you to coordinate system backups by dropping a few
simple configuration files into /etc/backup.d/. Most programs you
might use for making backups don't have their own configuration file
format. Backupninja provides a centralized way to configure and
coordinate many different backup utilities.
.PP

.SH FEATURES
 - easy to read ini style configuration files.
 - secure, remote, incremental filesytem backup (via rdiff-backup).
   incremental data is compressed. permissions are retained even
   with an unprivileged backup user.
 - backup of mysql databases (via mysqlhotcopy and mysqldump).
 - backup of ldap databases (via slapcat and ldapsearch).
 - passwords are never sent via the command line to helper programs.
 - you can drop in scripts to handle new types of backups.
 - backup actions can be scheduled
 - you can choose when status report emails are mailed to you
   (always, on warning, on error, never).
	 
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.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-h, \-\-help           
Show summary of options
.TP
.B \-d, \-\-debug          
Run in debug mode, where all log messages are output to the current shell.
.TP
.B \-f, \-\-conffile FILE  
Use FILE for the main configuration instead of /etc/backupninja.conf
.TP
.B \-t, \-\-test           
Run in test mode, no actions are actually taken.
.TP
.B \-n, \-\-now            
Perform actions now, instead of when they  might be scheduled.

.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Backupninja can be used to impliment whatever backup strategy you choose. It is intended, however, to be used like so:
.TP
First, databases are safely copied or exported to /var/backups.  Often, you cannot make a file backup of a database while it is in use, hence the need to use special tools to make a safe copy or export into /var/backups.
.TP
Then, vital parts of the file system, including /var/backups, are nightly pushed to a remote, off-site, hard disk (using rdiff-backup). The local user is root, but the remote user is not privileged. Hopefully, the remote filesystem is encrypted.
.TP
There are many different backup strategies out there, including "pull style", magnetic tape, rsync + hard links, etc. We believe that the strategy outlined above is the way to go because: (1) hard disks are very cheap these days, (2) pull style backups are no good, because then the backup server must have root on the production server, and (3) rdiff-backup is more space efficient and featureful than using rsync + hard links.

.SH SSH KEYS
.TP
In order for rdiff-backup to sync files over ssh unattended, you must create ssh keys on the source server and copy the public key to the remote user's authorized keys file. For example:

.br
root@srchost# ssh-keygen -t dsa
.br
root@srchost# ssh-copy-id -i /root/.ssh/id_dsa.pub backup@desthost

.TP
Now, you should be able to ssh from user 'root' on srchost to user 'backup' on desthost without specifying a password.

.TP
Note: when prompted for a password by ssh-keygen, just leave it blank by hitting return.

.SH FILES
.PD 0
\fB/usr/sbin/backupninja\fP        main script
.br
\fB/etc/backupninja.conf\fP        main configuration file; general options
.br
\fB/etc/cron.d/backupninja\fP      runs main script nightly
.br
\fB/etc/logrotate.d/backupninja\fP rotates backupninja.log
.br
\fB/etc/backup.d\fP                directory for configuration files
.br
\fB/usr/share/backupninja\fP       directory for handler scripts
.br
.PD

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR backupninja.conf (5), 
.br
.SH AUTHOR
BACKUPNINJA was written by <elijah@riseup.net>.
.br 
BACKUPNINJA was packaged by <micah@riseup.net>.
.PP
This manual page was written by stefani <stefani@riseup.net>.