Duplicity

Installation

See DuplicityBackupHowto.

sudo apt-get install duplicity
sudo apt-get install ncftp            # to use duplicity ftp backup

Basic usage

Relative vs absolute paths

• In all examples below, the paths on the remote server are relative (ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etcunset, scp://scp_user@scp.domain.com/var/).
• To use an absolute path, one must add an extra slash, like in scp://scp_user@scp.domain.com//absolute/path/to/var/.

Basic backup

export PASSPHRASE=SomeLongGeneratedHardToCrackKey
export FTP_PASSWORD=WhateverPasswordYouSetUp
duplicity /etc ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etc
unset PASSPHRASE
unset FTP_PASSWORD

(or change ftp URL: to file:///my/filesystem/path).

Basic verify (compare)

export PASSPHRASE=SomeLongGeneratedHardToCrackKey
export FTP_PASSWORD=WhateverPasswordYouSetUp
duplicity verify ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etc /etc
unset PASSPHRASE
unset FTP_PASSWORD

Collection status

duplicity collection-status scp://scp_user@scp.domain.com/var/ var

Basic file listing

# Using ftp
duplicity list-current-files ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etcunset PASSPHRASE

# Using scp, and GPG
duplicity --encrypt-key $ENCRKEY --sign-key $SIGNKEY list-current-files scp://scp_user@scp.domain.com/var/ var

Basic restore

# Restore latest backup from /etc here
duplicity ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etc .

# Restore /etc as it was 3 days ago
duplicity --time 3D ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etc .

# Restore only one file
duplicity --file-to-restore apt/sources.list ftp://FtpUserID@ftp.domain.com/etc /home/user/sources.list

Cron script

export PASSPHRASE=(insert your value here)
export FTP_PASSWORD=(insert your value here)

# doing a monthly full backup (1M)
duplicity --full-if-older-than 1M /etc ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/etc
# exclude /var/tmp from the backup
duplicity --full-if-older-than 1M --exclude /var/tmp /var ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/var
duplicity --full-if-older-than 1M /root ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/root

# cleaning the remote backup space (deleting backups older than 6 months (6M, alternatives would 1Y fo 1 year etc.)
duplicity remove-older-than 6M --force ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/etc
duplicity remove-older-than 6M --force ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/var
duplicity remove-older-than 6M --force ftp://(insert your FTP server here)/root

unset PASSPHRASE
unset FTP_PASSWORD

Install in crontab (crontab -e) by adding line:

0 0 * * * /root/scripts/etc/backup.sh >>/var/log/duplicity/etc.log