Sysadmin PHPBU CentMinMod Backup Tutorial

Hello guys,

I've discovered a pretty nice backup tool to backup everything I need : mysql databases, sites files, vhosts, cmm custom files, cron, etc...

It's called PHPBU:

sebastianfeldmann/phpbu

Since the tool is well documented but connecting the dots is not that easy, here is a quick tutorial.

---

Install the tool in the root/tools directory of your VPS:

Code:

cd /root/tools
wget https://phar.phpbu.de/phpbu.phar
php phpbu.phar –version

Create an Amazon SES IAM username with policy "AmazonSesSendingAccess" attached to it.

Create a verified sender in amazon SES.

Maybe you then need to configure something to use SMTP for this username, I can't remember.

=> Now you should have a verified amazon SES sender, and a username and password for the IAM user.

Go to Dropbox: Login - Dropbox click on: "Create App" > "Dropbox API" > "App folder – Access to a single folder created specifically for your app." > Give it a name, e.g. CMMPhpBuBackup > You'll end up on the App settings page, there click "generate" under "Generated access token", you'll end up with a veryyyyylooooonnngggggggsssssttttrrrriiinnnng.

On the vps, create a phpbu.xml file in the /root/tools folder:

Code:

nano phpbu.xml

Now you can modify my config file below to match your:
- amazon ses settings
- dropbox settings
- hostname (MYHOST in sample)
- the domain to backup (yourdomain.com in sample), you can easily add as many domains and mysql as you want by just adding multiple <backup ...> blocks

HTML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<phpbu xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://schema.phpbu.de/5.2/phpbu.xsd">
  <logging>
    <log type="mail">
     <option name="recipients" value="emailthatwillreceivebackupnotice@domain.com"/>
     <!-- set next line to true once you've verified that mailing works OK so you'll only get errors -->
     <option name="sendOnlyOnError" value="false"/>
     <option name="transport" value="smtp"/>
     <option name="sender.mail" value="your-amazon-ses-verified-sender@somedomain.com"/>
     <option name="smtp.port" value="587"/>
     <!-- change next line depending on your amazon SES SMTP region -->
     <option name="smtp.host" value="email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com"/>
     <option name="smtp.username" value="AMAZONSESIAMUSERNAME"/>
     <option name="smtp.password" value="AMAZONSESIAMPASSWORDTHATISQUITELONGTOO"/>
     <option name="smtp.encryption" value="tls"/>
    </log>
  </logging>
  <backups>
    <!-- ============================================================== -->
    <!--        PART 1 - BACKUP CENTMINMOD RELATED FILED                -->
    <!-- ============================================================== -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <!-- FILES BACKUP FOR CMM CONFIG.   .               -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <backup name="CMM-MYHOST">
      <!-- backup source -->
      <source type="tar">
        <option name="path" value="/etc/centminmod"/>
      </source>
      <!-- where should the backup be stored -->
      <target dirname="/root/tools/backup/cmm"
              filename="BACKUP-CMM-MYHOST-%Y%m%d-%H%i.sql"
              compress="bzip2"/>
      <sync type="dropbox">
        <option name="token" value="yoursuperlongdropboxappapikeywillgohere"/>
        <option name="path" value="/backups-cmm"/>
        <option name="cleanup.type" value="stepwise" />
        <!-- Days to keep all backups you made. -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepAll" value="2" />
        <!-- Days to keep at least one backup you made a day -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepDaily" value="3" />
        <!-- Amount of weeks to keep at least one backup for each week. -->
        <option name="cleanup.weeksToKeepWeekly" value="4" />
        <!-- Amount of month to keep at least one backup for each month. -->
        <option name="cleanup.monthToKeepMonthly" value="12" />
        <!-- Amount of years to keep at least one backup for each year. -->
        <option name="cleanup.yearsToKeepYearly" value="10" />
      </sync>
      <!-- cleanup the backup location
           as soon as all created backups exceed 10MB
           remove oldest backups -->
      <cleanup type="Capacity">
        <option name="size" value="10M"/>
      </cleanup>
    </backup>
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <!-- FILES BACKUP FOR CRON CONFIG.   .             -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <backup name="CRON-MYHOST">
      <!-- backup source -->
      <source type="tar">
        <option name="path" value="/var/spool/cron"/>
      </source>
      <!-- where should the backup be stored -->
      <target dirname="/root/tools/backup/cron"
              filename="BACKUP-CRON-MYHOST-%Y%m%d-%H%i.sql"
              compress="bzip2"/>
      <sync type="dropbox">
        <option name="token" value="yoursuperlongdropboxappapikeywillgohere"/>
        <option name="path" value="/backups-cron"/>
        <option name="cleanup.type" value="stepwise" />
        <!-- Days to keep all backups you made. -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepAll" value="2" />
        <!-- Days to keep at least one backup you made a day -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepDaily" value="3" />
        <!-- Amount of weeks to keep at least one backup for each week. -->
        <option name="cleanup.weeksToKeepWeekly" value="4" />
        <!-- Amount of month to keep at least one backup for each month. -->
        <option name="cleanup.monthToKeepMonthly" value="12" />
        <!-- Amount of years to keep at least one backup for each year. -->
        <option name="cleanup.yearsToKeepYearly" value="10" />
      </sync>
      <!-- cleanup the backup location
           as soon as all created backups exceed 10MB
           remove oldest backups -->
      <cleanup type="Capacity">
        <option name="size" value="10M"/>
      </cleanup>
    </backup>
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <!-- FILES BACKUP FOR VHOST CONFIG.   .             -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <backup name="VHOSTS-MYHOST">
      <!-- backup source -->
      <source type="tar">
        <option name="path" value="/usr/local/nginx/conf/conf.d"/>
      </source>
      <!-- where should the backup be stored -->
      <target dirname="/root/tools/backup/vhost"
              filename="BACKUP-VHOST-MYHOST-%Y%m%d-%H%i.sql"
              compress="bzip2"/>
      <sync type="dropbox">
        <option name="token" value="yoursuperlongdropboxappapikeywillgohere"/>
        <option name="path" value="/backups-vhost"/>
        <option name="cleanup.type" value="stepwise" />
        <!-- Days to keep all backups you made. -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepAll" value="2" />
        <!-- Days to keep at least one backup you made a day -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepDaily" value="3" />
        <!-- Amount of weeks to keep at least one backup for each week. -->
        <option name="cleanup.weeksToKeepWeekly" value="4" />
        <!-- Amount of month to keep at least one backup for each month. -->
        <option name="cleanup.monthToKeepMonthly" value="12" />
        <!-- Amount of years to keep at least one backup for each year. -->
        <option name="cleanup.yearsToKeepYearly" value="10" />
      </sync>
      <!-- cleanup the backup location
           as soon as all created backups exceed 10MB
           remove oldest backups -->
      <cleanup type="Capacity">
        <option name="size" value="10M"/>
      </cleanup>
    </backup>
    <!-- ============================================================== -->
    <!--        PART 2 - BACKUP MYSQL & FILES FOR SITES/APPS            -->
    <!-- ============================================================== -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <!-- MYSQL BACKUP FOR yourdomain.com.             -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <backup name="MYSQL-yourdomain.com">
      <!-- backup source -->
      <source type="mysqldump">
        <option name="databases" value="wp9836738627db_1686"/>
        <option name="user" value="wpdb8872u32119"/>
        <option name="password" value="jghvsgfsgjlzizgzfsgyskuzyz76562"/>
      </source>
      <!-- where should the backup be stored -->
      <target dirname="/home/nginx/domains/yourdomain.com/backup/mysql"
              filename="BACKUP-yourdomain.com-MYSQL-%Y%m%d-%H%i.sql"
              compress="bzip2"/>
      <sync type="dropbox">
        <option name="token" value="yoursuperlongdropboxappapikeywillgohere"/>
        <option name="path" value="/backups-mysql"/>
        <option name="cleanup.type" value="stepwise" />
        <!-- Days to keep all backups you made. -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepAll" value="2" />
        <!-- Days to keep at least one backup you made a day -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepDaily" value="7" />
        <!-- Amount of weeks to keep at least one backup for each week. -->
        <option name="cleanup.weeksToKeepWeekly" value="8" />
        <!-- Amount of month to keep at least one backup for each month. -->
        <option name="cleanup.monthToKeepMonthly" value="12" />
        <!-- Amount of years to keep at least one backup for each year. -->
        <option name="cleanup.yearsToKeepYearly" value="10" />
      </sync>
      <!-- cleanup the backup location
           as soon as all created backups exceed 100MB
           remove oldest backups -->
      <cleanup type="Capacity">
        <option name="size" value="100M"/>
      </cleanup>
    </backup>
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <!-- FILES BACKUP FOR yourdomain.com.             -->
    <!-- ============================================== -->
    <backup name="FILES-yourdomain.com">
      <!-- backup source -->
      <source type="tar">
        <option name="path" value="/home/nginx/domains/yourdomain.com"/>
        <option name="exclude" value="backup"/>
      </source>
      <!-- where should the backup be stored -->
      <target dirname="/home/nginx/domains/yourdomain.com/backup/files"
              filename="BACKUP-yourdomain.com-FILES-%Y%m%d-%H%i.sql"
              compress="bzip2"/>
      <sync type="dropbox">
        <option name="token" value="yoursuperlongdropboxappapikeywillgohere"/>
        <option name="path" value="/backups-files"/>
        <option name="cleanup.type" value="stepwise" />
        <!-- Days to keep all backups you made. -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepAll" value="2" />
        <!-- Days to keep at least one backup you made a day -->
        <option name="cleanup.daysToKeepDaily" value="7" />
        <!-- Amount of weeks to keep at least one backup for each week. -->
        <option name="cleanup.weeksToKeepWeekly" value="8" />
        <!-- Amount of month to keep at least one backup for each month. -->
        <option name="cleanup.monthToKeepMonthly" value="12" />
        <!-- Amount of years to keep at least one backup for each year. -->
        <option name="cleanup.yearsToKeepYearly" value="10" />
      </sync>
      <!-- cleanup the backup location
           as soon as all created backups exceed 600MB
           remove oldest backups -->
      <cleanup type="Capacity">
        <option name="size" value="600M"/>
      </cleanup>
    </backup>
  </backups>
</phpbu>

Now you can run phpbu to see if it works :

Code:

php phpbu.phar --verbose

If it's all fine you can then set a cronjob to run it :

Code:

crontab -e

and add a line like that:

Code:

17 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/php /root/tools/phpbu.phar --configuration=/root/tools/phpbu.xml

If everything runs fine, you should get some clean folders in your Dropbox/Applications/YourDropboxAppName :

Code:

backups-cmm
backups-cron
backups-files
backups-mysql
backups-vhost

and receive some emails about your backup routine status.

Else phpbu is well documented so with this sample and their documentation, you should be able to do whatever you want.

PHPBU Manual – Chapter 1. Installing PHPBU

Have fun!

 

Apparently it's working even with very large (I tested with 4.2GB random files) backup.

Took 43 minutes but worked well.

I guess it's probably coded similarly to the "All in One WP migration" plugin, i.e. it does work no matter what's the max execution time of php.

 

I would too if I had found a good **and** easy one with :

- backup to dropbox
- rotation of backups / cleaning
- backup files and databases

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything really easy to use.