path: root/doc/beam.conf.5in

.\" 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.
.\"
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.\" 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.
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.\"
.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.
.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 HOOKS
Two special variables, called hooks, allow you to supply arbitrary
procedures to be run before and after backup.
.TP
.B prologue_hook
This variable contains a whitespace-separated list of the commands to
be invoked before starting backup (or restore).  The 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 the commands to
be invoked after the backup (or restore) has finished.  The 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"
.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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