Rsync backup CentOS server with email report

Running various business critical CentOS based Linux servers means good backups are a must. The ability to restore completely from backup to a DR site is a must.

To do this I keep a copy of the server backed up at root level on a locally hosted NAS.

A nightly rsync runs, with appropriate exlucsions that keeps a local copy of the system in sync. Data usage on the various Web/DNS/email servers I run works out to be around 50-200mb a night.

rm -f /var/log/sync/*

rsync -avzh –delete –stats server1.com:/ ย /store/backup/server1/ >/var/log/sync/server1 –exclude={/dev/*,/proc/*,/sys/*,/tmp/*,/run/*,/mnt/*,/media/*,/lost+found,/home/*/.gvfs,usage/*}

tail /var/log/sync/* | mail -s “Server sync report”logs@myemail.com

add a rsync line for each server.

the rsync logs are kept in /var/log/sync. To know if it was a success I can monitor the email. As I’m really only interested in success/fail i use tail to only show me the last few lines of each log.

To restore, do a minimal install of the same CentOS version, install rsync, and rsync directly over root from the backup. Reboot to bring the new system back online as per the last backup.

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