Newer
Older
tbku / tbku.txt
**NAME**

  tbku - Table-driven backup script


**SYNOPSIS**

  ``tbku allsets | [fileset] ...``


**DESCRIPTION**

  ``tbku`` is a utility script for producing "tarball" backups of
  some- or all of your files.  It is useful both for producing
  incremental backups or for systemwide images or "snapshots".  The
  script can be run either from the command line or, more typically,
  as a ``cron`` job to automate system backup tasks.

  ``tbku`` uses standard utilities common on Unix-like systems, like
  ``tar``, ``sed``, and ``uname``.  It uses no other special or custom
  tools.  For this reason, it is highly portable across many variants
  of these systems.

  The central benefit of using ``tbku`` over hand written ``tar``
  commands is that ``tbku`` is "table driven".  You specify the set
  of files to back up in a table (a separate file).  You can have as
  many of these "filesets" as you wish, corresponding to different
  kinds of backups you want done.  ``tbku`` will do backups
  automatically or manually, based on the name of the "fileset".  This
  considerably simplifies automating backups, keeping backup logs, and
  generally maintaining an orderly backup environment.

  ``tbku`` was originally developed as a backup tool for FreeBSD
  servers.  Since then, it has been updated to also work with SUSE
  Linux, both servers and desktops.  ``tbku`` should work with little-
  or no modification on any other Unix-like system.  For example,
  ``tbku`` will run without modification (other than default
  locations) in a ``cywgin`` environment under MS-Windows.


**INSTALLING tbku**

  To use ``tbku``, all you have to do is install the file somewhere in
  your ``$PATH``.  Typically, a good place for it is in
  ``/usr/local/bin``.  Just make sure its permissions are 755 so all
  users will be able to use it.

  You may optionally want to put ``tbku.1.gz`` somewhere in your
  ``$MANPATH`` so this documentation will be available as a man page.

  There is also a ``tbku`` port for FreeBSD users that automates the
  installation and deinstallation of ``tbku``.

  Once you've installed the program, you should verify that its
  default settings are to your liking.  If not, you can override them
  via environment variables (described later in this document).  For
  interactive use, make sure the environment variables you want to set
  are exported when you log in.  If you're running ``tbku`` from a
  ``cron`` job, be sure to set the environment variables of interest
  in the ``crontab`` file.


**USING tbku**

  **Using Filesets** 

  ``tbku`` has to know just *what* you want backed up.  You do
  this by creating a so-called *fileset* in the appropriate
  directory (default: ``$HOME/tbku/``).  Filesets are just text
  files that list all the files and/or directories that are
  to be backed up together.  For instance, suppose you had
  a fileset called ``manual.fileset.homedirs`` that contained
  just these three lines::

    /root
    /home
    /usr/home

  If you now run this command::

    tbku homedirs

  The files and/or contents of ``/root``, ``/home``, and ``/usr/home``
  would be written to a tarball in the backup directory (default:
  ``/bku/``).  By default, the resulting tarball's name has a long
  string of text that includes the machine name, system type, OS type,
  date, *and* the so-called *set name*.  The "set name" is nothing
  more than the suffix of the name of the fileset used to produce the
  tarball, in this case, ``homedirs``.  

  Additionally, you'll also find a log of the backup and "dot files"
  that tell you when the backup began and when it ended. Here's part
  of what you might see if you did an ``ls -a /bku``::

    .mach.fake.org-FreeBSD-6.3-STABLE-i386-homedirs-20080319-begin
    .mach.fake.org-FreeBSD-6.3-STABLE-i386-homedirs-20080319-end
    mach.fake.org-FreeBSD-6.3-STABLE-i386-homedirs-20080319.tar.gz
    mach.fake.org-FreeBSD-6.3-STABLE-i386-homedirs-20080319.log

  The "dot files" don't actually contain any information, but their
  date/time stamps (you can see this with ``ls -al /bku``) will tell
  you when the backup began and ended.

  The log file contains a list of all the files that actually
  made it into the tarball.  The log file also captures *the
  errors* encountered during a backup.  This means that ``tbku``
  is generally pretty quiet during a backup run.  It scribbles
  any complaints it has into the log.  So... you should check
  your logs regularly to make sure everything is working as
  expected.

  You can create as many different filesets as you like (for as many
  different kinds of backups as you need).  So, for example, you may
  have one for the files you want backed up daily, another for weekly
  backups, another for taking a snapshot of the entire system, and so
  on.

  The *name* of a fileset can be used to change ``tbku`` behavior
  (described below).  The *content* of a fileset file must conform
  to only a few rules:

    1) Each line may contain the name of a *single* file or directory.
       You cannot place multiples of these on a single line.

    2) Each entry should be *an absolute path*.  That way, ``tar``
       will be able to figure out what it is you want to back up.  By
       default, most modern ``tar`` implementations will strip the
       leading ``/`` so your backup tarball will be relative to
       wherever you are when you restore from it.

    3) There is no support for comments or other metadata inside a
       fileset.  File- and directory names are the *only* thing
       that should ever be there.

  **Fileset Naming**

  ``tbku`` semantics (behavior) depend on how you've named your
  filesets.  In general, a fileset should be named as follows::

    auto.fileset.setname

    OR

    manual.fileset.setname

  Any fileset name that begins with "auto." will automatically be
  backed up when you run the script without arguments::

    tbku

  If a fileset begins with something other than "auto.", you
  have to explicitly name the set on the command line for
  it to be backed up.  Say we have only two filesets, ``manual.fileset.music``
  and ``manual.fileset.docs``.  Then::

    tbku                # Does nothing
    tbku music          # Only backs up the manual.fileset.music fileset
    tbku music docs     # Backs up both filesets

  The "setname" is used to uniquely name each backup tarball.

  Strictly speaking, ``tbku`` only cares about the "auto" string.
  Anything other than "auto" as a prefix in the fileset name, will
  cause the file to be seen as requiring manual invocation.  Using
  "manual" is just a helpful convention.

  Similarly, you don't need the "fileset" in the middle of the
  filename, it's just a helpful convention.  ``tbku`` only examines
  the prefix of the filename (up to the ".")  to determine whether to
  do automatic backups.  It uses the suffix (from the last "." to the
  end of the file name) to determine the set name.  In fact, you
  don't even have to fully specify the set name, just any trailing
  substring::

    tbku ic             # Backs up manual.fileset.music

  While these little semantic subtleties may be interesting, you are
  strongly *discouraged* from using them, as they are not guaranteed
  to be preserved in future releases of ``tbku``.  Stick to the
  conventions described above, and you should be fine.


  **The allsets Option**

  As you might guess, you can force *all* backup sets to be done
  regardless of whether they are marked as "auto" or "manual"
  by doing this::

    tbku allsets

  The "allsets" argument must be the first argment on the command
  line, and anything following it will be ignored.  In other words,
  only the form shown above is meaningful.

  **tbku: Nothing to do!**  

  You may see ``tbku`` grumbling about having nothing to do.  This
  happens under one of several circumstances:

    1) You ran ``tbku`` without arguments, but there are no
       "auto" filesets defined.

    2) You ran ``tbku`` with arguments, but no filesets with
       matching set names were found.

    3) There are no filesets at all.

  **Autodeletion Of Old Backups**

  As shipped, ``tbku`` uniquely identifies each backup set based on
  machine name, OS, CPU architecture, set name, and, most importantly,
  date.  If you've set it up to run as a cron job, over time you'll
  accumulate lots of older copies of backups.  That's because each new
  day, the backup file name will change (since it include the date).

  If you don't like this default behavior, change the ``TBKUDEL``
  environment variable to be "YES". It must be *exactly* this string,
  all in upper case.  Anything else will cause ``tbku`` to *not*
  autodelete old backups.  This is intentional, to make it hard to
  accidentally enable this feature.

  Enabling this feature forces ``tbku`` to delete all older files
  associated with the selected set name.  This includes the start/stop
  "dot" files, the log, and the backup tarball itself.  In effect,
  this option forces ``tbku`` to only keep the most recent backup of
  each backup set.

  *Use this option with caution!* If you only keep the most recent
  copy of your backups in your backup directory, you may never be able
  to get to changes made days, weeks, or months prior.


**IMAGING WITH tbku**

  It is possible to use ``tbku`` backups to completely (re)image a
  machine.  The general idea is to have ``tbku`` produce a tarball of
  all the (relevant) files on the system you want to "clone".  Then,
  you can dump that onto a newly prepared filesystem on the target
  machine.  This is a handy (and relatively quick) way to recover a
  system after a hard drive failure or upgrade, for example.

  The ``tbku`` distribution contains separate documents that describe
  in detail how to image both FreeBSD and SUSE Linux systems.  You can
  also read the documents on line at:

    http://www.tundraware.com/Software/tbku


**CUSTOMIZING tbku**

  ``tbku`` is written to be "smart" enough to figure out where your
  system keeps needed tools like ``tar`` or ``sed``.  The only
  requirement here is that ``tbku`` be run in an environment that can
  find the ``which`` command somewhere in its ``$PATH`` - ``tbku``
  uses ``which`` to figure out just where everything it needs lives on
  your filesystem.  If ``tbku`` cannot figure out where your system
  keeps things, it will use the FreeBSD default values.

  For most FreeBSD and Linux users, this should work without any
  customization beyond setting environment variables to override
  default behavior (described below).  In rare circumstances, you may
  need further customization.  All the things you're likely to ever
  want to change appear first in the actual ``tbku`` script, and are
  briefly documented there.


**DEFAULTS & ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES**

  You can override the various ``tbku`` defaults by setting a
  corresponding environment variable.
  

  =================  ===============================  =========================
  **Env. Variable**  **Default Value**                **Meaning**
  -----------------  -------------------------------  -------------------------
  TBKUDEL            NO                               YES -> Delete old backups
  TBKUDIR            /bku                             Where to write backups
  TBKUNAME           $MACHINE-$OSTYPE-$OSREV-$HWTYPE  Tarball base name
  TBKUSETS           $HOME/tbku                       Filesets found here
  TBKUTAPE           /dev/sa0                         Tape device (or file)
  =================  ===============================  =========================


  Examples::

    export TBKUDIR=/mnt/backups    # Backups written to /mnt/backups

    export TBKUNAME=JoeBackup      # Backups named: JoeBackup-<filesetname>

    export TBKUSETS=/tbku          # Looks for filesets in /tbku

    export TBKUTAPE-/tmp/faketape  # Tape backups actually written to *file*

    export TBKUDEL="YES"           # Autodelete old backups when starting a set


**OTHER**

  ``tbku`` was originally designed for use by experienced
  systems administrators and users.  As such, it does little
  or no error checking.  If you define backup or fileset
  directories that are non-existent, for instance, you will
  get strange behavior.  ``tbku`` *will* try to create the
  backup directory you've specified if it does not already
  exist, but this may not work if you're running as anything
  other than ``root`` user.

  ``tbku`` is intended to make it easier/more automatic to
  to backups.  It is not, however, idiot-proof.  There are
  some general backup guidelines you should observe:

    **NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER ... EVER**, trust a backup tool
    until you've confirmed that it is correctly producing backups
    **and** you can properly restore from them!

    Always keep multiple copies of your backups.  If ``tbku`` is
    writing its backups to the same drive/system it runs on, **make
    sure you also keep a copy of those backups "off system"**.

    It's a pretty good idea to keep **multiple backup copies**, on
    **different media** (disk, tape, DVD, thumbdrive), in **different
    locations**.


**UPDATES & SUPPORT**

  To get the latest version of 'tbku', go to:
  
    http://www.tundraware.com/Software/tbku

  For questions, comments, or other feedback, send email to:

    tbku@tundraware.com


**AUTHOR**

  Tim Daneliuk, TundraWare Inc.


**COPYRIGHT & LICENSING**

  ``tbku`` is Copyright (c) 2004-2008, TundraWare Inc., Des Plaines, IL, USA

  There is no fee for using ``tbku`` either personally or commercially
  *so long as the terms of the tbku license are met*.  Please read the
  ``tbku-license.txt`` file for a full explanation of the licensing
  terms.

  

**DOCUMENT INFORMATION**

  This document was produced using the very useful
  ``reStructuredText`` tools in the ``docutils`` package.  For more
  information, see:

    http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

``$Id: tbku.txt,v 1.108 2008/03/19 21:42:32 tundra Exp $``