Client backups

Back up your data by synchronising that data to a dedicated directory on the machine b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at, as per the instructions below. The data on b.fluid is then a mirror of your local data. The backups are made from the mirrored data. Please note, that directories which have names ending in ".nobackup", "cache", "Cache", or contain a cachedir-tag, are excluded from the backup.

For instance, data on mypc:/home/myaccount is synchronised to b:/home/myaccount/mypc/home/myaccount.

Home directories on b are backed up daily and can be restored for at least one year by the admins. You can log in via ssh to b, using the credentials of your TU e-mail account, to see whether a home directory is already set up for you. If a home directory does not yet exist on b.fluid, please contact the admins (Thomas Loimer or Werner Jandl) so they can create a home directory for you.

The synchronisation of the data involves two steps which are presented in detail further below,

setting up a rsync-command which synchronises the data on your desktop computer with the data on b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at, and
setting up a cron-job which invokes the rsync-command once an hour.

Setup instructions

Windows

In order to set up file synchronisation to b.fluid on your Windows client, your system needs an rsync client and a customised Windows synchronisation script. For details on how to proceed, please contact Iris Fula.

Common part for GNU/Linux, macOS, other Unix-like operating systems

On your desktop computer, please …

check that the program rsync is installed (should be installed by default on most systems)
save the script sync-to-host to a directory of your choice, for example ~/bin/; further below, the path to this script must be set accordingly
make the script sync-to-host executable (e.g., chmod +x ~/bin/sync-to-host)
copy the following lines to a terminal, adjusting TU_USER according to your TU username:

bash    # the commands below must be executed in the bash shell
export TU_USER=YOUR_TU_USERNAME

copy/paste the following lines to a terminal, adjusting ~/bin/sync-to-host to the actual path to the script,

export TARGET_HOST=b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at
export TARGET_DIR=$(hostname -s)

# run the backup script once (enter your TU password when asked to do so)
~/bin/sync-to-host ${TU_USER} ${TARGET_HOST} ${TARGET_DIR}

Please, edit the file ~/.config/sync-to-host/exclude.txt and set the patterns of files and directories which should be ignored by the backup. See man rsync under INCLUDE/EXCLUE PATTERN RULES for the syntax of these patterns.

The top of the file sync-to-host contains some comments on how the script works.

Automated backups on GNU/Linux

In order to set up a cron job for automated client backups on GNU/Linux systems, please copy and paste the following lines into the same terminal as above. Set SYNC_CMD according to the path where you saved the sync-to-host script:

export SYNC_CMD="${HOME}/bin/sync-to-host ${TU_USER} ${TARGET_HOST} ${TARGET_DIR}"
export SYNC_TIME="$((RANDOM % 60)) * * * *"
export CRON_ENTRY="${SYNC_TIME} ${SYNC_CMD}"
crontab -l 2>/dev/null | { cat; echo "${CRON_ENTRY}"; } | crontab -

Automated backups on macOS

In order to set up a launchd job for automated client backups on macOS systems, please copy and paste the following lines into a terminal:

#!/bin/bash
export BASENAME=at.ac.tuwien.fluid.b_backup-${USER}
export PLIST_PATH=${HOME}/Library/LaunchAgents/${BASENAME}.plist
cat > ${PLIST_PATH} <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>${BASENAME}</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>${HOME}/bin/sync-to-host</string>
    <string>${TU_USER}</string>
    <string>${TARGET_HOST}</string>
    <string>${TARGET_DIR}</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
  <key>StartInterval</key><integer>3600</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF
launchctl load ${PLIST_PATH}

Restoring data

Instructions for admins

In order to restore data from a backup, backups can be mounted to a user's home directory. Users can then access their data using an SFTP client (e.g. Nautilus on GNU/Linux, Cyberduck on macOS and WinSCP on Windows).

For example, in order to expose backup data from b.fluid to the user oswat, the following commands might be used:

export BACKUP_REPO=/mnt/backup/b/home/oswat.borg
export RESTORE_DIR=/home/oswat/restore-$(date -Idate)
mkdir ${RESTORE_DIR}
borg mount -o default_permissions,allow_other ${BACKUP_REPO} ${RESTORE_DIR}
ls ${RESTORE_DIR}

Note: As soon as users have restored their data, backups should be unmounted again:

umount ${RESTORE_DIR}