GIT-rsync Backup Script

A Bash script designed to automate the backup of remote websites (files and MySQL databases) to a local directory. It leverages Git to version control the backups, providing an incremental history of changes, and rsync for efficient file transfer.

Project Overview

• Name: GIT-rsync Backup Script
• Description: This tool mirrors a remote website's file system and database to a local machine. It initializes a Git repository in the backup directory, commits changes after every backup run, and optionally pushes the history to a remote Git repository (like GitHub or Bitbucket).
• Status: Production-ready for basic use cases.

Tech Stack

The script relies on standard Unix/Linux utilities:

• Bash: Core scripting language.
• Git: For version control and history management.
• Rsync: For efficient, incremental file synchronization.
• SSH: For secure communication with the remote server.
• MySQL (mysqldump): For database backups.

Project Structure

.
├── backup.sh       # The main configuration and execution script
└── README.md       # Project documentation

Features

• Incremental File Backups: Uses rsync to pull only changed files from the remote server.
• Database Backup: Dumps remote MySQL databases and stores them as .sql files.
• Version Control: Automatically commits file and database changes to a local Git repository with a timestamp.
• Remote Git Push: Optionally pushes the backup history to an external Git remote (e.g., GitHub, GitLab).
• File Exclusion: Configurable support for excluding specific directories (e.g., cache, temporary uploads) from the backup.

Installation & Setup

Prerequisites

Local Machine:

• Linux/Unix-like environment.
• Installed packages: git, rsync, ssh.
• SSH Keys: For automated backups without password prompts, you must configure passwordless SSH key authentication between the local machine and the remote server.

Remote Server:

• SSH access.
• rsync installed.
• mysqldump installed (for database backups).
• The user must have read permissions for the files and mysqldump permissions for the database.

Configuration

1. Clone or download this repository.

2. Open backup.sh in a text editor.

3. Modify the configuration variables at the top of the file:

   # Site Configuration
   SITE_NAME="mysite"          # Identifier for the site
   SSH_USER="root"             # Remote SSH user
   SSH_PORT=22                 # Remote SSH port
   
   # Database Configuration
   BACKUP_DB=1                 # 1 to enable, 0 to disable
   DB_NAME="mydb"              # Database name
   DB_USER="dbuser"            # Database username
   DB_PASS="dbpass"            # Database password
   
   # Git Configuration
   REMOTE_GIT_ENABLED=0        # 1 to push to remote git repo
   REMOTE_GIT_PATH=""          # URL of the remote git repo (e.g., git@github.com:user/repo.git)
   
   # File Exclusion
   EXCLUDE_ENABLED=1
   EXCLUDE_FOLDERS=( 'wp-content/cache' 'temp' )

Important Path Configuration

The script currently defaults to saving backups in /root/backups/sites/. If you run this script as a non-root user, you must change the BACKUP_PATH variable to a directory you have write access to (e.g., /home/youruser/backups).

# Modify this line in backup.sh if not running as root
BACKUP_PATH="/path/to/your/writable/directory/$SITE_NAME"

Usage

Once configured, simply execute the script:

./backup.sh

Note: Ensure the script is executable (chmod +x backup.sh).

Automation

To run backups automatically (e.g., daily), add a cron job:

1. Run crontab -e.

2. Add a line like the following (runs every day at 3 AM):

   0 3 * * * /path/to/backup.sh >> /path/to/backup.log 2>&1

License

GPL V2