SimpleBackup - Automatic Website & Database Backup Tool

SimpleBackup is a simple and reliable automatic backup tool for your websites and databases. Created by SimpleHeberg to simplify hosting backup management.

✨ Features

• 🗂️ Website Backup: Complete archiving of your files
• 🗄️ Database Backup: MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL support
• 🗜️ Automatic Compression: Files compressed in .tar.gz to save space
• 🔄 Backup Rotation: Automatic deletion of old backups
• 📝 Detailed Logs: Complete tracking of each operation
• ⚙️ JSON Configuration: Simple and readable settings
• 🚀 Automation: Easy to integrate with cron

📋 Requirements

• Python 3.6 or higher
• mysqldump for MySQL/MariaDB databases
• pg_dump for PostgreSQL databases
• Read permissions on folders to backup
• Access to databases to backup

Installing Database Tools

Debian/Ubuntu:

# For MySQL/MariaDB
sudo apt-get install mysql-client

# For PostgreSQL
sudo apt-get install postgresql-client

CentOS/RHEL:

# For MySQL/MariaDB
sudo yum install mysql

# For PostgreSQL
sudo yum install postgresql

🚀 Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/simpleheberg/simple-backup.git
cd simple-backup

2. Make the script executable:

chmod +x backup_automator.py

3. Create initial configuration:

./backup_automator.py --init

⚙️ Configuration

Edit the automatically created backup_config.json file:

{
    "backup_dir": "./backups",
    "retention_days": 7,
    "compression": "gz",
    "websites": [
        {
            "name": "my_site",
            "path": "/var/www/html/mysite",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ],
    "databases": [
        {
            "name": "my_database",
            "type": "mysql",
            "host": "localhost",
            "port": 3306,
            "user": "backup_user",
            "password": "secure_password",
            "database": "my_prod_db",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ]
}

Configuration Options

Option	Description	Default Value
backup_dir	Backup destination folder	./backups
retention_days	Number of days to keep backups	7
compression	Compression type	gz
websites[].enabled	Enable/disable backup	false
databases[].type	Database type: mysql, mariadb, postgresql	-
databases[].enabled	Enable/disable backup	false

💡 Usage

Manual Backup

# Use default configuration
./backup_automator.py

# Use custom configuration file
./backup_automator.py --config /path/to/config.json

Automation with Cron

To run automatic daily backups at 2 AM:

# Edit crontab
crontab -e

# Add this line (adjust path)
0 2 * * * /path/to/backup_automator.py >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

Frequency examples:

• 0 2 * * * - Every day at 2:00 AM
• 0 */6 * * * - Every 6 hours
• 0 2 * * 0 - Every Sunday at 2:00 AM
• 0 2 1 * * - 1st of each month at 2:00 AM

Weekly Full Backup

# Every Sunday at 3:00 AM
0 3 * * 0 /path/to/backup_automator.py --config /etc/backup/weekly_config.json

📁 Backup Structure

Backups are organized as follows:

backups/
├── logs/
│   └── backup_20240214.log
├── my_site_website_20240214_020000.tar.gz
├── my_db_mysql_20240214_020030.sql.gz
└── other_site_website_20240214_020100.tar.gz

File Naming Convention

• Websites: {name}_website_{date}_{time}.tar.gz
• MySQL/MariaDB: {name}_mysql_{date}_{time}.sql.gz
• PostgreSQL: {name}_postgresql_{date}_{time}.sql.gz

🔐 Security

Important Recommendations

1. Protect your configuration file:

chmod 600 backup_config.json

2. Create a dedicated backup user:

MySQL:

CREATE USER 'backup_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password';
GRANT SELECT, LOCK TABLES, SHOW VIEW, EVENT, TRIGGER ON *.* TO 'backup_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

PostgreSQL:

CREATE USER backup_user WITH PASSWORD 'strong_password';
GRANT CONNECT ON DATABASE my_db TO backup_user;
GRANT SELECT ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO backup_user;

3. Store backups outside the web server:

{
    "backup_dir": "/var/backups/sites",
    ...
}

4. Encrypt sensitive backups:

# Example encryption with GPG
gpg --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 backup.tar.gz

🔧 Restoration

Restore a Website

# Extract the archive
tar -xzf my_site_website_20240214_020000.tar.gz -C /var/www/html/

# Check permissions
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/my_site

Restore a MySQL Database

# Decompress and restore
gunzip < my_db_mysql_20240214_020030.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p my_prod_db

Restore a PostgreSQL Database

# Decompress and restore
gunzip < my_db_postgresql_20240214_020030.sql.gz | psql -U postgres my_prod_db

📊 Logs and Monitoring

Logs are stored in backups/logs/ with one file per day:

[2024-02-14 02:00:00] - INFO - Starting backup process...
[2024-02-14 02:00:05] - INFO - Backing up website: my_site
[2024-02-14 02:00:12] - INFO - ✓ Website backup completed: my_site_website_20240214_020000.tar.gz (45.32 MB)
[2024-02-14 02:00:15] - INFO - Backing up MySQL database: my_prod_db
[2024-02-14 02:00:28] - INFO - ✓ MySQL backup completed: my_db_mysql_20240214_020015.sql.gz (12.45 MB)
[2024-02-14 02:00:30] - INFO - Cleaning up backups older than 7 days...
[2024-02-14 02:00:31] - INFO - ✓ Cleaned up 3 old backup(s), freed 123.45 MB
[2024-02-14 02:00:31] - INFO - Backup process completed: 2 successful, 0 failed

🐛 Troubleshooting

Issue: "mysqldump not found"

Solution:

# Install MySQL client
sudo apt-get install mysql-client  # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo yum install mysql             # CentOS/RHEL

Issue: "Access denied for user"

Solution: Check backup user permissions:

SHOW GRANTS FOR 'backup_user'@'localhost';

Issue: Backups too large

Solutions:

• Exclude temporary files
• Increase retention only for specific backups
• Use external storage (NAS, S3, etc.)

Issue: Compression failure

Solution: Check available disk space:

df -h

🎯 Use Case Examples

WordPress

{
    "websites": [
        {
            "name": "wordpress_prod",
            "path": "/var/www/html/wordpress",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ],
    "databases": [
        {
            "name": "wordpress_db",
            "type": "mysql",
            "database": "wordpress",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ]
}

PrestaShop / WooCommerce

{
    "websites": [
        {
            "name": "shop",
            "path": "/var/www/html/prestashop",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ],
    "databases": [
        {
            "name": "shop_db",
            "type": "mysql",
            "database": "prestashop_prod",
            "enabled": true
        }
    ],
    "retention_days": 14
}

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

1. Fork the project
2. Create a branch for your feature
3. Commit your changes
4. Push to the branch
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

🌐 About SimpleHeberg

SimpleBackup is developed and maintained by SimpleHeberg, your all-in-one web hosting solution.

Our Services

• Professional web hosting
• Website creation
• Maintenance and technical support
• Custom solutions

Need hosting? Contact us at simpleheberg.fr

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