.\" This file is part of BEAM -*- nroff -*-
.\" Copyright (C) 2012-2014 Sergey Poznyakoff
.\"
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.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
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.\" any later version.
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.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
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.TH BEAM 1 "March 19, 2014" "BEAM" "BEAM User Reference"
.SH NAME
beam \- a backup manager
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B beam
backup [\fIoptions\fB]

.B beam
restore [\fIoptions\fB]

.B beam
list [\fIoptions\fB]

.B beam
s3 [\fIoptions\fB]

.B beam
help \fICOMMAND\fR

.B beam
[\fB\-h\fR] [\fB\-\-help\fR] [\fB\-V\fR] [\fB\-\-version\fR]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR B ackup
.BR E asy
.BR A nd
.BR M anageable
is a suite of backup programs written in reasonably portable shell language
with the purpose of making backup process as easy as possible.
.PP
All backup operations are controlled by the
.B beam
utility, which acts as a dispatcher between programs responsible for
particular tasks.  The actual task is specified as a
.BR command ,
i.e. a command verb given as the first argument to the program.
For example,
.B beam backup
creates a backup.
.PP
.B Beam
operates on
.BR backup " " items.
An item is a set of files, which should be handled together.  The way
to handle these files during backup or restore is defined by the item
.B type.
For example, the basic item type is \fBfs\fR (file system),
which implies archiving all files comprising the item into a single
.BR tar (1)
archive.  There are special item types for MySQL and PostgreSQL
databases, etc.
.PP
.B Beam
is a modular system.  New item types can easily be defined by
providing a module which defines how they should be handled during
backup and restore.  A module is a shell script named after the item
type and placed in the 
.B @LIBDIR@/beam
directory.
.PP
The backup process is controlled by the configuration file
.BR @SYSCONFDIR@/beam.conf .
This file is a set of shell variable assignments which define the
items to include in the backup.
.PP
For a detailed description of
.B beam
configuration file, backup item definitions and module system, see
.BR beam.conf (5).
.SH COMMANDS
.TP
.B backup
Create a backup.  See
.BR beam\-backup (1).
.TP
.B restore
Restore files from backup.  See
.BR beam\-restore (1).
.TP
.B list
List items included in the backup.  See
.BR  beam\-list (1).
.TP
.B s3
Mount or unmount a backup s3 bucket.  This command is available only
if
.B beam
was configured with the
.B \-\-with-s3
option.  See
.BR beam\-s3 (1).
.TP
.BR help " " \fIcommand\fR
Display help page for a particular \fIcommand\fR.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
Display a short help summary.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
Display program version.
.SH FILES
.TP
.B @SYSCONFDIR@/beam.conf
Default configuration file.
.TP
.B @LIBDIR@/beam
Backup module directory.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B BEAM_CONFIG
If defined, this variable supplies full pathname of the configuration
file to use instead of the default
.BR @SYSCONFDIR@/beam.conf .
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR beam\-backup (1),
.BR beam\-restore (1),
.BR beam\-s3 (1),
.BR beam\-module (5),
.BR beam.conf (5).
.SH AUTHORS
Sergey Poznyakoff
.SH "BUG REPORTS"
Report bugs to <@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@>.
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