BEAM README file. Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Sergey Poznyakoff See the end of file for copying conditions. * Introduction BEAM is a flexible and configurable tool for backup management. Its name is an acronym for "Backup Easy And Manageable". The tool provides utilities for backing up files and databases, restoring them from existing backups and examining backup archives. BEAM is written in a reasonably compatible POSIX shell language. The only deviation from the POSIX standard is that it makes use of the "local" keyword. * Prerequisites 1. A POSIX-compatible shell that supports the "local" keyword. Most existing shells do. 2. GNU tar version 1.16 or newer. 3. For backing up MySQL databases: mysql and mysqldump. 4. For backing up PostgreSQL databases: PostgreSQL. In fact, the following utilities are used: pg_dump, pg_restore, dropdb, createdb, and psql. 5. For backing up and restoring LDAP databases: slapcat and slapadd. 6. If you plan to keep backups on Amazon S3 storage: s3backer. It is available from http://code.google.com/p/s3backer. * Installation The usual way: ./configure make # [become root] make install The configure script provides a lot of options to tailor the installation to your needs. The most important options are: --prefix=DIR Use DIR as the installation prefix. Installation prefix is appended to the normal paths when installing the system. BEAM uses the following locations: PREFIX/etc -- configuration directory PREFIX/libexec -- directory for low-level beam utilities PREFIX/lib/beam -- directory for beam modules. --sysconfdir=DIR Use DIR as the system configuration directory. --libdir=DIR Install BEAM modules in DIR/beam. --libexecdir=DIR Install low-level utilities in DIR. --with-s3 Install modules for handling file systems backed by the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). For the list of available generic options, consult the file INSTALL. * Overview The "beam" utility works as a primary dispatcher tool. It takes a command and its options as the arguments. The following commands are available: beam backup - runs a backup beam restore - restores from a backup beam list - lists what is included in a backup beam s3 - manages a s3-backed file system beam help COMMAND - displays a short help for COMMAND Configuration settings are read from the file beam.conf, located in the system configuration directory (see above). The package uses modular structure which makes it extremely flexible. The low-level commands are located in the LIBEXECDIR. For example, running "beam backup" indirectly invokes LIBEXECDIR/beam-backup utility. Backup methods are provided by modules, located in the directory PREFIX/lib/beam. Each module is a shell program providing primitives for a particular task. For example, the mysql.sh module handles backups of MySQL databases. * Documentation The documentation in man page format is available: beam(1) beam-backup(1) beam-restore(1) beam-list(1) beam-s3(1) beam-module(5) beam.conf(5) * Bug reporting Send bug reports to . * Copyright information: Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Sergey Poznyakoff Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn. Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions, provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last changed them. Local Variables: mode: outline paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$" version-control: never End: