.\" This file is part of BEAM -*- nroff -*-
.\" Copyright (C) 2012 Sergey Poznyakoff
.\"
.\" BEAM is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
.\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
.\" any later version.
.\"
.\" BEAM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
.\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.\" along with BEAM. If not, see .
.\"
.TH BEAM.CONF 1 "May 16, 2012" "BEAM" "BEAM User Reference"
.SH NAME
beam.conf \- configuration file for
.B backup becomes easy
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fBbeam.conf\fR configuration file defines what files are to be
included in the backup, what backup methods to use and where to store
the resulting archives. The
.BR backup (1)
and
.BR restore (1)
utilities expect to find it in the
.B @SYSCONFDIR@
directory.
.SH SYNTAX
The file is essentially a shell script that defines variables
controlling backup and restore procedures. The names of the variables
used by the backup scripts begin with
.BR backup_ .
.SH GENERAL SETUP
.TP
.B backup_logfile
If set, redirect standard error and standard output to that file. The
file will be created if it does not exist. Otherwise, the output will be
appended to it.
.TP
.B backup_rsh_command
Use this command to access remote archives. Unless set, the backup
utilities will first look for an executable file named
.BR @BINDIR@/speedssh .
If not found, they will fall back to using \fB/usr/bin/ssh\fR. It is
the responsibility of the administrator to provide for authentication
on the remote system, e.g. by using shared-key authentication.
.TP
.B backup_retain_interval
Sets the interval, in weeks, during which old backups and snapshots
are retained. Empty value or zero means never delete the backups.
This variable is used by
.BR backup (1),
which calls
.BR backup-cleaner (1)
if it is set.
.SH S3 SETUP
To keep archives in a
.B s3
bucket you will need the
.BR s3backer (1)
utility.
.TP
.B backup_s3backer_options
Additional options for
.BR s3backer (1).
Use it, e.g., to pass the
.B \-\-vhost
option if your bucket is located outside of the US region.
.TP
.B backup_bucket_name
Sets the name of the
.B s3
bucket to keep the archives in.
.TP
.B backup_mp_s3backer
Defines mount point for the "raw" bucket.
Default value is
.BR /mnt/s3backer .
.TP
.B backup_mp_s3
Defines mount point for the actual s3-backed filesystem.
Default value is
.BR /mnt/s3 .
.SH TAR SETUP
Tar setup variables control additional options and arguments passed to
.BR tar (1).
.TP
.B backup_tar_options
Use this variable to pass additional options to tar. Do not place tar
operation switches (such as \fB-c\fR, \fB-t\fR, etc.) here! These
will be added automatically by appropriate scripts, depending on the
operation being performed
By default this variable is empty (no additional options passed to tar).
.TP
.B backup_suffix
This variable supplies suffix for created archive names. The default
is
.B tar .
The dot is inserted between the file name and its suffix.
This variable is useful if you request compression and want archive
file names to reflect it. For example:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
backup_tar_options="-j"
backup_suffix="tar.bz2"
.in
.fi
.sp
.TP
.B backup_archive_dir
Directory where archive files are located. It's OK to specify
a remote directory here, e.g.
.sp
.nf
.in +2
backup_archive_dir="10.10.0.1:/export/backup"
.in
.fi
.sp
This variable must be defined and whatever directory it points to must
already exist.
.TP
.B backup_snapshot_dir
Directory for incremental snapshot files. These files are be named after
their archive counterparts, by appending the
.B .db
suffix.
.TP
.B backup_verbose
Set this variable to any non-empty value to request additional
verbosity. The effect of this setting depends on backup methods being
used. For example, the
.B fs
method adds a
.B \-v
option to each invocation of
.BR tar (1).
.SH BACKUP ITEMS
A
.B backup item
identifies information that needs to be backed up. Syntactically,
items follow the same rules as shell variable names. Backup items
are introduced using the following variable:
.TP
.B backup_items
A whitespace-separated list of backup items.
.PP
For each backup item
.B name
the configuration file must provide a set of variables describing
where to obtain this information and how to store it to the archive.
These variables follow the same naming convention:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
\fBname\fR_\fBvar\fR
.in
.fi
.sp
where \fBname\fR is the item name and \fIvar\fR is a valid shell
identifier.
The
.B \fBname\fR_type
variable must always be defined. It identifies the backup method
to be applied to that item. Currently two backup methods are
implemented:
.TP
.B fs
A file system backup.
.TP
.B postgres
Backup of a PostgreSQL database.
.SH FS BACKUP TYPE
This is the basic backup type, which means incremental backups of a
specified file system. For each item of this type, the following
variables must be defined:
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_dir
The absolute path to the file system being backed up.
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_files
A whitespace-separated list of directories and/or files in the
.B \fIitem\fB_dir
directory.
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_exclude
A whitespace-separated list of file names (or
.BR glob (3)
patterns) to exclude from archivation. This is translated to
a list of
.B \-\-exclude
options to
.BR tar (1).
Make sure to quote globbing patterns as you would have done in shell,
to prevent them from being expanded too early. For example:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
system_exclude="'var/spool/mail/*'"
.in
.fi
.sp
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_exclude_from
A list of files to read exclusion patterns from. It is translated
into a list of
.B \-\-exclude\-from
options.
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_tar_options
A list of additional options to pass to tar. Use this with caution.
.PP
For example:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
backup_items="system"
system_type=fs
system_dir="/"
system_files="etc var/spool"
.in
.fi
.sp
This configuration requests incremental backups of everything found in
the directories \fB/etc\fR and \fB/var/spool\fR.
.SH POSTGRES BACKUP TYPE
The
.B postgres
type creates a dump of a PostgreSQL database and archives it using
.BR tar (1).
The following variables must be defined for items of this type:
.TP
.B \fIitem\fB_database
The database name.
.SH MYSQL BACKUP TYPE
The
.B mysql
backup type creates a dump of a MySQL database and archives it witj
.BR tar (1).
The database to dump and access credentials are specified using the
following variables:
.TP
.B \fIitem\fR_database
The database name.
.TP
.B \fIitem\fR_defaults_file
A full pathname of the MySQL defaults file containing credenitals for
accessing this database. This file must have at least the
.B mysqldump
and
.B mysql
sections, the former being used when dumping the database and the
latter when restoring it.
.SH MAIL NOTIFICATION
Apart from usual logging, backup reports can be sent via email to
selected recipients. To enable this feature, the variable
.B backup_notify_email
must be defined to a comma-separated list of recipient email
addresses.
.PP
A number of variables is provided to customize the email headers and
contents.
.TP
.B backup_notify_email
Sets a list of emails to receive backup report. Multiple emails must
be separated with commas. If not set, no notification will be sent.
.TP
.B backup_sender_email
Defines the sender email address. Backup reports will appear to be
sent from this address. The default value is
\fBroot\fR@\fIhostname\fR, when \fIhostname\fR is the name of the host
on which the backup is run.
If set, this variable must contain a single email address, without
personal part or comments, e.g.
.sp
.nf
.in +2
backup_sender_email=root@example.com
.in
.fi
.sp
.TP
.B backup_sender_personal
Defines personal part of the sender email. The personal part will be
enclosed in double quotes and prepended to the value of
.B backup_sender_email
to form a valid RFC-2822
.B From
header. For example, if you have:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
backup_sender_email=root@example.com
backup_sender_personal="Automatic backup report"
.in
.fi
.sp
then the resulting report will contain:
.sp
.nf
.in +2
From: "Automatic backup report"
.in
.fi
.sp
.TP
.B backup_report_headers
Defines additional headers for the report message. By default, the
following headers are generated:
.BR From ,
.BR To ,
.BR Subject ,
.BR X-Beam-Items ,
.BR X-Beam-Round ,
and
.BR X-Beam-Level . The three \fBX-\fR headers contain the backed up
items (as set in the
.B backup_items
variable), backup round and backup level numbers, correspondingly.
To supply multiple headers, delimit them with single newline characters.
.TP
.B backup_report_intro
Sets the introductory text to be displayed before the actual report.
.TP
.B backup_report_signature
Sets the signature text, which will be output after the report body.
.TP
.B backup_mailer_program
Defines the mailer program. The default is
.sp
.nf
.in +2
/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t -F $backup_sender_email
.in
.fi
.sp
.SH HOOKS
Two special variables, called hooks, allow you to supply arbitrary
commands to be run before and after backup.
.TP
.B prologue_hook
This variable contains a whitespace-separated list of commands to
be invoked before starting backup (or restore). These commands are
started in order of their appearance in the list and are called
without arguments. By default, this variable is empty.
.TP
.B epilogue_hook
This variable contains a whitespace-separated list of commands to
be invoked after the backup (or restore) has finished. These commands are
started in order of their appearance in the list and are called
without arguments. By default, this variable is empty.
.SH EXAMPLES
A simple configuration file for backing up the contents of
.BR /etc,
.BR /home ,
and the PostreSQL database
.BR savane :
.sp
.nf
.in +2
# Request bzip2 compression:
backup_tar_options="-j"
# Modify file name suffix accordingly
backup_suffix="tar.bz2"
# Write data to \fB/dev/rmt1\fR on a remote machine:
backup_archive_dir=192.168.0.1:/dev/rmt1
# Keep snapshots in this directory:
backup_snapshot_dir=/var/snapshots
# Two backup items are defined:
backup_items="dbdump system"
# The \fBdbdump\fR item dumps the database:
dbdump_type=postgres
dbdump_database=savane
# The \fBsystem\fR item backs up the file system:
system_type=fs
system_dir="/"
system_files="etc home"
# Notify root about the results.
backup_notify_email=root@example.com
backup_sender_email=devnull@example.com
backup_sender_personal="Automatic daily backup"
backup_report_intro="Today's daily backup produced the following
results."
backup_report_signature="\-\-
Best regards,
Beam Automatic Backup"
.in
.fi
.sp
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR beam (1),
.BR beam-restore (1),
.BR beam-backup (1),
.BR beam-cleaner (1).
.SH AUTHORS
Sergey Poznyakoff
.SH "BUG REPORTS"
Report bugs to <@PACKAGE_BUGREPORT@>.
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