Mikes Backup

A simple python script utilizing rsync for both full and differential backups, and auto folder naming, over SSH

Honestly this is more of a wrapper around rsync's beautiful functionality. It simply makes daily backups slightly easier by:

• Automatically choosing a full or differential backup type, based on whether it detects an existing full backup folder at the remote end
• Automatically generate a folder based on today's date and time, so you can generate a great many differential backup folders without manually changing anything

Requirements

• rsync
• python3
• Backup server accessible over SSH

Assumptions

• Your backup destination is an SSH server

Command Line Arguments

• --full Forces the script to run a full backup
• --differential Forces the script to run a differential backup
• --log-dir <directory> Let's you set the log output directory
• --source-dir <directory> Specifies the local source directory
• --remote-host <hostname> Specifies the remote host, to send the backups to over ssh
• --remote-user <username> Specifies the remote username to use, when connecting to the remote host
• --remote-dir <directory> Specifies the remote backup destination directory
• --ssh-key <path to key> Specifies the local ssh key to use for authentication
• --exclude <dir> Specifies a source directory to exclude (can be passed multiple times)

Example

For daily use, you'll probably want to create a small bash script that calls this script with the parameters you want, and then call that with cron daily (or whatever your preference is)

/path/to/mikes-backup \
  --log-dir "/my/log/dir" \
  --source-dir "/home/or/whatever" \
  --remote-host "my-awesome-host.home" \
  --remote-user "me" \
  --remote-dir "/path/to/backup/destination/on/remote/" \
  --ssh-key "/home/me/.ssh/id_rsa" \
  --exclude "/my/dumb/downloads" \
  --exclude "/my/even/dumber/downloads"

Questions

I realize these docs are sparse at best, so please send in questions if you have any, and I will try to update this file or create a Wiki if need be