Home backup with tar

Thunderw · 02-02-2012, 08:08 AM

Hi,

I would like to backup my server's home directory with tar, which is working fine except the result is a huge file.
Is it possible somehow to make a backup from my users home directories into a e.g: user1.tar.gz, user2.tar.gz etc file instead of home.tar.gz?

Thanks, Thunder

Thunderw · 02-02-2012, 08:23 AM

Sorry I forgot to post my current script:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# ilesystem-snapshot utility: daily snapshots
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# should run at 6pm
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

# ------------- system commands used by this script --------------------
ID=/usr/bin/id;
ECHO=/bin/echo;

RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync;
TAR=/bin/tar;
RM=/bin/rm;
SU=/bin/su;
SUDO=/usr/bin/sudo;
MD=/bin/mkdir;
MV=/bin/mv;

# ------------- file locations -----------------------------------------

SOURCE4=/etc;
SOURCE5=/home;
SOURCE16=/var;

DESTINATION=/media/synonas/friday;
# ------------- the script itself --------------------------------------

#$SUDO;

# make sure we're running as root
if (( `$ID -u` != 0 )); then { $ECHO "Ohh noes you are not root.  Exiting..."; exit; } fi

# checking backup status

if [ -f $DESTINATION/etc.tar.gz ] ; then \
$RM -r $DESTINATION/etc.tar.gz ;
fi;
if [ -f $DESTINATION/homes.tar.gz ] ; then \
$RM -r $DESTINATION/homes.tar.gz ;
fi;
if [ -f $DESTINATION/var.tar.gz ] ; then \
$RM -r $DESTINATION/var.tar.gz ;
fi;


# Backup file system

$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/etc.tar.gz $SOURCE4;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/homes.tar.gz $SOURCE5;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/var.tar.gz $SOURCE16;

edgardl · 02-02-2012, 08:51 AM

Hello

You could use a for loop, I think in something like

Code:

# Backup file system

$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/etc.tar.gz $SOURCE4;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/homes.tar.gz $SOURCE5;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/var.tar.gz $SOURCE16;

for i in $(ls -l /home); do
 $TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/$i.tar.gz /home/$i
done

jefro · 02-02-2012, 03:35 PM

Maybe not using the best compression?

chrism01 · 02-02-2012, 07:51 PM

Even with max compression, eventually you could end up with huge file if the users store that much data.
Easiest way is to loop through each dir under /home, creating a new backup for each user.
Also means restores are easier for one user.

dedec0 · 02-03-2012, 07:06 AM

So, now that you have a tar.gz file for each user, you may try other compression mecanisms.

Gzip has not the greatest compressions. Bzip2 is better, and it also has a controlled and small amount of RAM spent to decompress (see man bzip2); I find this interesting for huge files.

Want to try even better compression? But this is not traditional (yet). Try pipeing a tar file to 7z. 7zip gives much better results on many commom cases (for me) and when not, still a little better than the others.

Do not use 7-zip alone to compress the user folders because tar is the right thing for backups. It keeps all file system properties for files.

Thunderw · 02-04-2012, 06:12 AM

Hi,

Edgardl,
First of all thanks.

The script works like a charm, now I can throw out my 180GiB tar file

But for some reason it generates weird files eg: dwrxdwrx---.tar.gz all of them are 45byte.

Dedec0,
I will try other compression mechanism too, maybe I could save some space.

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgardl

Hello

You could use a for loop, I think in something like

Code:

# Backup file system

$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/etc.tar.gz $SOURCE4;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/homes.tar.gz $SOURCE5;
$TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/var.tar.gz $SOURCE16;

for i in $(ls -l /home); do
 $TAR -zcvf $DESTINATION/$i.tar.gz /home/$i
done

lithos · 02-04-2012, 08:58 AM

Hi

I could maybe suggest you only to try maybe incremental backup to get smaller archive files,
from my incremental TAR backup script.

good luck

chrism01 · 02-05-2012, 06:32 PM

Note also that both gzip & bzip2 have a param to set the amt of compression. Default value is roughly in the middle; better compression equals more time to run & vice-versa.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/gzip
http://linux.die.net/man/1/bzip2