Automate dietpi-backup

[johnvick]

All working well thanks again @MichaIng

[unixmit]

I am trying and failing with this. I want a cronjob to run a script that runs the backup automatically.

In my script I have:

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#!/bin/bash

/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1

In crontab I have:

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* 3  *   *   *     sh /home/unix/dietpi-backup.sh

It never runs the backup utility. The script runs as I have set it to create a log file when it runs. If I run the script manually it works too.

Can anyone see what I'm missing?
Thank you

[MichaIng]

@unixmit
Jep, somehow cron does not allow tput anymore. Fix: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/commi ... 0174844090

[brightwolf]

Thanks for the script. However, when I run it as published here, I end up with a 'dietpi-backup-' directory, i.e. a dietpi backup without a number. If you're a Linux scripting beginner like me, this could cause some headaches. I solved it by isolating the new backup number calculation on a seperate line. Here's my version of the script:

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MAX_BACKUPS=10
cd /mnt/usbstick
if [[ -d dietpi-backup ]]; then
  rm dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS
  for ((i=$MAX_BACKUPS-1;i>1;i--)); do
    j=$((i+1))
    mv dietpi-backup-$i dietpi-backup-$j
  done
  mv dietpi-backup dietpi-backup-2
fi
/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1

[MichaIng]

rm dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS does not work for directories. This requires the -R command. As well to reduce disk writes, I would use the oldest backup as a start point for the new one, so incremental sync can avoid unnecessary writes.
As well check for existing dirs, before moving them, to avoid error messages.

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MAX_BACKUPS=10
cd /mnt/usbstick
[[ -d dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS ]] && mv dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS dietpi-backup-tmp
if [[ -d dietpi-backup ]]; then
  for ((i=$MAX_BACKUPS-1;i>1;i--)); do
    [[ -d dietpi-backup-$i ]] && mv dietpi-backup-$i dietpi-backup-$((i+1))
  done
  mv dietpi-backup dietpi-backup-2
fi
[[ -d dietpi-backup-tmp ]] && mv dietpi-backup-tmp dietpi-backup
/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1

@brightwolf

Thanks for the script. However, when I run it as published here, I end up with a 'dietpi-backup-' directory, i.e. a dietpi backup without a number. If you're a Linux scripting beginner like me, this could cause some headaches. I solved it by isolating the new backup number calculation on a seperate line.

Ah I see, but the result will be exactly the same?

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    j=$((i+1))
    mv dietpi-backup-$i dietpi-backup-$j

and

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    mv dietpi-backup-$i dietpi-backup-$((i+1))

leads to the same backup dir structure.

Currently /path/to/dietpi-backup (without appending number) is required to allow the dietpi-backup script restoring this backup. You could tweak the naming a bid, e.g. starting the rotated backup dirs with dietpi-backup-1 or dietpi-backup.1, but for easy rotation a number is required and as said the initial dir without number as well.

I see if I can add this natively with v6.22 to have a more consistent/user friendly solution and find a way to use time/date format instead of numbers. So e.g. every backup will have a time/data appendix and when recovering you can choose from which date to recover. It just causes me headache when thinking about how to reliably find the oldest date .

[noobian]

Hi

I'm running the "Native PC for UEFI"-DietPi on a Z83-F & love it.

Since I am new to Linux, I don't know where to save or call the .sh/script mentioned in this thread

I would need to generate versioned (named by timestamp?) backups in /mnt/mybackuplocation
... so I could return to different states of the DietPi. Instead of re-installing the whole system over and over again.
But whenever I run "dietpi-backup 1" my existing backup just gets overwritten.

An automated system-backup would be great (like a timeshift for DietPi), but I even would call it manually, mainly the versioned backups would be helpfull. Any tip on how to achieve this?

[MichaIng]

@noobian
The below will automatically create a backup every day:

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cat << _EOF_ > /etc/cron.daily/backup
#!/bin/bash
MAX_BACKUPS=10
cd /mnt/mybackuplocation
[[ -d dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS ]] && mv dietpi-backup-$MAX_BACKUPS dietpi-backup-tmp
if [[ -d dietpi-backup ]]; then
  for ((i=$MAX_BACKUPS-1;i>1;i--)); do
    [[ -d dietpi-backup-$i ]] && mv dietpi-backup-$i dietpi-backup-$((i+1))
  done
  mv dietpi-backup dietpi-backup-2
fi
[[ -d dietpi-backup-tmp ]] && mv dietpi-backup-tmp dietpi-backup
/DietPi/dietpi/dietpi-backup 1
_EOF_
chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/backup

- You can adjust the backup location via dietpi-backup directly. Then assure that the parent directory matches the one above: /mnt/mybackuplocation
- You can adjust the time (hour + minute) of the daily cron job via dietpi-cron.
- And of course adjust MAX_BACKUPS to your needs.
- Place the script into /etc/cron.weekly instead if this is regular enough. It would be also possible as well to define a more individual schedule via crontab.

[noobian]

@MichaIng

wow ... thanks so much!
never heard of "cat << EO" before ... nice

is it possible to run a daily & a weekly backupscript next to each other, without them overwriting each other? so I could keep 2 weekly backups, and 7 daily ones?

[MichaIng]

The one weekly backup would match one of the daily backups but of course it is possible. You could add a weekly cron job that syncs the 7th daily backup to another sub dir and before that the existing weekly backup to another one. So you would have 7 daily backups and two weekly that are up to two weeks older than the last daily. Since cron jobs are executed concurrently we have to think about how to assure the same dir is not synced concurrently. Perhaps add it to the same script and check for a certain day of week.