Remote Rsync script

• Author: Javier Romero (jrgn@kth.se)
• GitHub: https://github.com/libicocco/remote_rsync

This free software is copyleft licensed under version 3 of the GPL license.

The goal of this script is to perform a rotary backup in a remote server. Suitable for running regularly with cron.

Usage:

First download the script:

user@local-host$ git clone https://libicocco@github.com/libicocco/remote_rsync.git
user@local-host$ cd remote_rsync

Remember that you should have ssh access to the server where you want to backup to. If you want to avoid inputting several times your password, you should create an ssh key pair:

user@local-host$ [Note: You are on local-host here]
user@local-host$ ssh-keygen
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa):[Enter path, like /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa]
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): [Press enter key]
Enter same passphrase again: [Pess enter key]
Your identification has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
45:b5:ae:ab:95:95:18:11:51:d5:dc:96:2a:a2:55:a9 

And copy it to the server:

user@local-host$ ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa.pub user@remote-host

Now you can backup your data by specifying the server, the data to be backed up and the ssh private key.

python3 remote_rsync.py  -s user@remote-host -d /home/user/ -k /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa

You can create excluding rules by using the file backup_exclude (read the provided file for an example on how to use it) or creating a file named .nobackup in the folders not to be backed up

python3 remote_rsync.py  -s user@remote-host -d /home/user/ -k /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa -e backup_exclude

If you want to automate a regular backup of your data, you can do it with cron 2. Execute

user@local-host$ crontab -e

And add the following line in order to backup your data every day at 18:15

15 18 * * *  /usr/bin/python3 /PATH-TO-REMOTE_RSYNC/remote_rsync.py -s user@remote-host -d /home/user/ -k /home/user/.ssh/remote_rsync_id_rsa -e /PATH-TO-REMOTE_RSYNC/backup_exclude

You should have setup properly your ssh keys in order to automatize the backup with cron

Contributors:

• Javier Romero 1