Backup

Looking for a simple backup tool (no sophisticated client-server solution for now) I stumbled upon backupninja. From its package description I learnt:

Backupninja lets you drop simple config files in /etc/backup.d to
coordinate system backups. Backupninja is a master of many arts,
including incremental remote filesystem backup, MySQL backup, and ldap
backup.

Sounds convincing, doesn't it? After executing apt-get install backupninja I run man backupninja. The man page gives some basic information most notably it mentions a small program called ninjahelper. It uses dialog for user interaction, offering two basic functions:

• new - create a new backup action
• quit - leave ninjahelper

For our server I create three tasks using default options:

1. sys - I check only the package list
2. mysql
3. rdiff

The last option requires a user account on a remote machine with ssh access. The really helpful ninjahelper creates and copies an ssh public key, installs required packages and leaves you with a working backup configuration.

Main configuration file: /etc/backupninja.config
Backup actions directory: /etc/backup.d
Cron job: /etc/cron.d/backupninja