Help with Homemade Backup script

dping28 · 02-13-2008, 04:23 AM

Hi,

I got a website running on a host and I have SSH access to them. I wrote as best as I could a little script to dump the mysql db and compress the directory and sql file into a single file in a folder labeled by the month and day. and then created a crontab to execute it once a month. However towards the end of Jan and through almost the entire first week of Feb it seem to have run everyday but the contents of the backup were empty. But if i run the file manually it works fine.. Im hoping someone here could help me figure what I have wrong.. (I renamed everything to generic stuff)

File: WebBackup

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# Create Backup files

# Website.com
# ---
mysqldump --host=db.host.net -u user -pPassword dbName > ./Backups/Web-db.sql
tar -cvf ./Backups/www.tar ./Website.com
tar -cvf ./Backups/Website.tar ./Backups/Web-db.sql ./Backups/www.tar
rm ./Backups/Web-db.sql ./Backups/www.tar
gzip ./Backups/Website.tar

# Create Backup Folder
value1=$(date|awk '{print $2}')
value2=$(date|awk '{print $3}')
value3=$value1-$value2
mkdir ./Backups/Website/$value3

# Move file to Backup folder
mv ./Backups/Website.tar.gz ./Backups/Website/$value3

Crontab:

Code:

59 23 1-6 * 5 ./WebBackup

Im not sure if the crontab is right, Im not familar with it and did the best searching I could to find that.. I basically just want to run this file once a month.

Is there maybe some debug code that could be added to help track down future problems? Not that familar with this stuff created this by just googling various things and trial and error.

Any help you could give I would be greatful! Thanks!!

-D

billymayday · 02-13-2008, 04:41 AM

I know nothing about MySQL, but a couple of things.

1. does the WebBackup script work if you run it from a terminal?
2. is the script executable?
3. crontab entries are along the lines of min hr mday mon dow, so your crontab entry should look something like

30 0 1 * * /full/path/to/script/WebBackup

to run it at 30 past midnight on the 1st of the month

Note you need the path there

yongitz · 02-13-2008, 04:46 AM

This is just a little correction for your cron job. This will execute your script on the every 1st of the month at 11:59pm

Quote:

59 23 1 * * full_path_of_your_script

Hope this helps.

::EDIT:: posted a little late.. same as above suggestion.. cheers!

dping28 · 02-13-2008, 04:57 AM

1. Yes when im logged in by SSH I can run it manually and works fine..
2. Yep its executable
3. As far as the path I think thats where I have been running into a little issue. Since this is a host provider I dont have access to any directories below mine. Would I still need to enter the full path? How would I find that since I cant see anything other than my dir?

Thanks to both of you on the crontab correction, I will try changing the first portion now and look more into what path should be set..

-D

TheBeli · 02-13-2008, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dping28

1. Yes when im logged in by SSH I can run it manually and works fine..
2. Yep its executable
3. As far as the path I think thats where I have been running into a little issue. Since this is a host provider I dont have access to any directories below mine. Would I still need to enter the full path? How would I find that since I cant see anything other than my dir?

Thanks to both of you on the crontab correction, I will try changing the first portion now and look more into what path should be set..

-D

You should still be able to run it with full path.
Just get the path with `pwd` on the script folder...
Or you could try using it from your home dir ~/folder_of_script/script

Also, try running the script with the full path when you are connected with SSH, to see any possible errors.

dping28 · 02-14-2008, 07:14 AM

Thank you.. I will give that a shot and see next month

dping28 · 03-04-2008, 05:12 PM

Ok, I seem to have got it working by changing everything to the full path that shows up in pwd. Thank you for that.. I also directed the output to a log file for checking errors.

Now I got one last question.. I have 3 sites I run this on so I repeated this code 3 times and changed it with the specific values. I know in programming languages there are ways to simplify this by just supplying the different variables when calling that block of code. Not being a programmer or that Linux savvy I'm kinda lost as to what exactly I should be googling. Is this something thats doable in bash scripts? or am i venturing into the territory of needing to write an app? If it is something I can do could you tell me what specifically I am looking for? Thanks!

-D

bigrigdriver · 03-04-2008, 09:22 PM

Looks like these four lines can be trimed down to 2 lines:

Quote:

tar -cvf ./Backups/www.tar ./Website.com
tar -cvf ./Backups/Website.tar ./Backups/Web-db.sql ./Backups/www.tar
rm ./Backups/Web-db.sql ./Backups/www.tar
gzip ./Backups/Website.tar

Like so:

Quote:

tar -zcvf ./Backups/Website.tar ./Backups/Web-db.sql ./Website.com
rm ./Backups/Web-db.sql

TheBeli · 03-05-2008, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dping28

Now I got one last question.. I have 3 sites I run this on so I repeated this code 3 times and changed it with the specific values. I know in programming languages there are ways to simplify this by just supplying the different variables when calling that block of code. Not being a programmer or that Linux savvy I'm kinda lost as to what exactly I should be googling. Is this something thats doable in bash scripts? or am i venturing into the territory of needing to write an app? If it is something I can do could you tell me what specifically I am looking for? Thanks!
-D

I think, in your case, you could use environment variables in your bash scripts.
You can read DSL's Wiki for more information.

jschiwal · 03-05-2008, 05:59 AM

You don't want to use the -v option for a job running as a cron job. You aren't attached to a console. At the very least, redirect the message output to /dev/null or a file.

dping28 · 03-05-2008, 07:37 PM

jschiwal: Yeah I added >> /full/path/Backups/Backup.log 2>&1 to the end of my crontab..

TheBeli: Thanks for the link I will give that a read..

bigrigdriver: Thanks Ill give that a try as well..

dping28 · 03-05-2008, 08:39 PM

In case anyone was curious I found what I was wanting to do.. It was a function and here is what I converted my script to:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

# Create Backup Directory Value
# ---
value1=$(date|awk '{print $2}')
value2=$(date|awk '{print $3}')
value3=$value1-$value2

# Backup files function
# ---
# 1=dbHost 2=dbUser 3=dbPass 4=dbName 5=FileName 6=webDir
function WebBackup {
mysqldump --host=$1 -u $2 -p$3 $4 > $HOME/Backups/$5-db.sql
tar -zcvf $HOME/Backups/$5.tar.gz $HOME/Backups/$5-db.sql $HOME/$6
rm $HOME/Backups/$5-db.sql
mkdir $HOME/Backups/$6/$value3
mv $HOME/Backups/$5.tar.gz $HOME/Backups/$6/$value3
}

# Create Backup files
# 1=dbHost 2=dbUser 3=dbPass 4=dbName 5=FileName 6=webDir
# WebBackup $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $6

So I just make one line following that last comments syntax for each website. Works great! Thanks all for the help!

-D

dping28 · 04-18-2008, 02:27 PM

Quick question for you guys. My host has a long dir structure in place so when I use the $HOME variable in my tar in the file I have the entire dir structure thats 8 or so dir deep. Is there any way to do the above but not have any of the dir's in the tar from the $HOME variable? if that makes any sense. Thanks!

billymayday · 04-18-2008, 03:18 PM

I think tar stores the whole path no matter what you do. Not 100% on that, but I can't see anything in the man page that tells me otherwise

dping28 · 04-25-2008, 02:36 PM

Anyone know of another compression program I could use that would allow me to not include the $HOME directories? cause really I would just like an archive that contains 2 folders one being the webpage folder and the backup folder that includes the sql dump file. that way I can create a restore script and not have to mess with all the dir's from the host. Thanks!

-D