Wanted - Cron-Job SQL/PHP Server guru Options

[djellison]

Amoungst our troops there must be someone who knows how to write Cron-jobs.

I'd like to set up the UMSF server to automate backups of the forum DB and attachments folder, but it's just a bit beyond me. It's a LAMP setup using Cpanel 11.

Anyone who has 'the knowledge' to help me out - let me know!

No pay, but you can have an UMSF subdomain to put stuff on ( like Mike has for MMB anims ) as a UMSF perk

Cheers

Doug

[imipak]

Wow, there's not much I can add to Fran's comment. Tchah!, and I had geekpr0n.unmannedspaceflight.com all worked out in my mind's eye...

If you want to get fancy / clever in future, you could try using rsync to do incremental (only save the changes) remote network backups with ssh crypto. A simple incantation is a one-liner:

CODE

rsync -a -k  -v -e ssh /home/andrew/* andrew@sluggbox:/media/sdb1/home/backup/thinkpad/

It's less typing than the shell script approach, but you have to be able to install rsync if it's not there already, and set up the remote machine, and be able to handle the bandwidth costs if you're doing this over the Internet rather than to the next machine down in the rack. The advantages of having the backups offsite is that you can easily be back up and running if the data centre / hosting location is offline for an extended period. There are surprisingly many unexpected scenarios [1] that can cause you to lose connectivity to the site, apart from the apocalyptic stuff the DR geeks get exercised about. Also the traffic on the wire is encrypted.[2]

I hacked up something along these lines when my techno-paranoid father finally bought a digital camera, and started accumulating irreplaceable data which he stored on a single HD, in a cheap Dell box, situated in a single-glazed, ground-floor room, in a completely un-alarmed house, in front of a window next to a public footpath. Oh yeah, and the window doesn't have a lock. [3]

There are also a couple of projects that use rsync as the core of a more full-featured network backups setup. A friend swears by Bacula, though I've not tried it myself. Lots of other recipes along the same lines are out there.


[1] *cough* Gloucester floods 2007 fasthosts

[2] One of the dirty little secrets of infosec is that examples of unencrypted traffic being maliciously intercepted are pretty rare these days. Unless, that is, the victims are too embarrassed to call the cops -- or don't realise it's happening...

[3] Oh yes, and it's also an absolute tinderbox of 18th century untreated wood, protected only by haphazardly concealed battery-operated smoke alarms which I hide around the place whenever I'm there, but which they throw out when the battery goes flat and they start beeping. If you need to give a sparkie sleepless nights, ask me for a pic of the fuseboard... </tangent>)