[Tutorial] Step by Step guide to build the Poor Man’s Backup System

Ok, not long ago I responded to another person’s post requesting help on how to do backups to the internet. My reply included some references to (what I thought was a simple fix) a solution I pretty much hacked together using simple bash scripts, crontab jobs, and some planning. I was surprised at the requests that my otherwise off the cuff answer generated. You can see the thread and my answer here:

Anyway…

If you spot something I left out please chime in and I will update the text of the post. Likewise if you see an error in syntax, also let me know and I will humbly fix it. However, if after reading all of this you know of a better solution, then please start a new thread with your simpler and better solution explained in step by step detail, then place your link to it here so all of the new users may benefit from it. Anything less is just you wanting to hear yourself talk and not really say much.

** Fair Warning ** I am not a developer or even a fair programmer of high level languages, I am just a systems implementer with just enough knowledge of linux to keep my head above water. So I hope I can get the point across for most newcomers to ERPNext.

Poor Man’s Backup System Details:

This plan requires you to have 2 identical KVM type VPS servers usually from the same cloud VPS service provider but on different physical hardware. These can be in the same building, different buildings or even in different cities as long as they are different physical hardware. If you are using OpenVM style servers, this solution may not work (ERPNext may not work either).

One server is the primary live production server and the other is an identical standby production server. If you are just setting up ERPNext for the first time, it is best to set up both servers at the same time. You can then install everything on both servers at the same time. If you already have a live production server running (even if it is only a day or two old), it is probably best to use the image backup service provided by your cloud VPS service provider to make the second server.

This means you should use the image backup service (usually available to you in your service provider dashboard account) and generate a copy of the running primary server. When the backup is finished, send a service request to your service provider asking them to restore that image to your second server. This sometimes takes a day or so for the service providers to get the 2nd server restored. They usually schedule during their off-peak times (at least this is how the few companies I worked with have done it). This image backup and restore service is usually free with your account. Check with your service provider. They sometimes call this a snapshot service so you can make a snapshot of your server and download it to your local workstation for safe keeping. I just use it to keep identical servers running.

If you used the image backup and restore method, you will also have to edit the following file to reflect the correct ip address information for your standby server:

/etc/network/interfaces

When restoring an image of another server, it is going to faithfully write this file as it was on the original server and that would keep the standby server from being available to the internet. Ask your service provider for the correct data to edit into this file, or make a copy of it from the bare standby server before you overwrite it with the new image.

Additionally, you will have to edit the “site_config.json” file on the standby server to remove any URL assignments that were from the primary server. You can use bench to assign a new name later (like maybe server2.MyERPServer.com to avoid having to buy another URL just use a sub domain).

The Poor Man’s Backup System essentially runs database backups on a schedule that you choose and sends a copy of the backup file to the standby server so that it can be restored on very short notice in the event of a catastrophic failure of the primary live production server. You can set the interval of the “backup and send” routine to best fit your comfort level.

8 Steps to building the Poor Man’s Backup System:

1.) Setup 2 identical VPS server on different hardware and different ip addresses

2.) Create simple directory structure on primary server for the created backup files

3.) Add one script file on the primary server to run the backups, manage the backup files, and send the files to other servers for safe keeping

4.) Add one crontab entry on the primary server to run the custom script file

5.) Create simple directory structure on standby server to manage inbound backup files

6.) Add one script file on the standby server to manage the inbound backup files

7.) Install the “incron” utility on the standby server

8.) Add one incrontab entry on the standby server to run the backup file management script

So, let’s get started!! If you followed the instructions up to this point you already have step one finished and are ready to begin adding the proper elements to the servers. So Step #1 is finished.

From this point forward there will be many references to the “default user account” on the servers. Since they are both identical the account should also be identical on them. The default user account is the linux user account that has the ERPNext installation within it. If you used the defaults in the easy install script that account would be /home/frappe/ however I recommend that you add the –user switch to the easy install script at install time and make the default account your cloud servers linux user login account. In this document is will always be called “def_user”

Step #2:

On the primary server perform the following commands from the default user account.

mkdir /home/def_user/bin
mkdir /home/def_user/backups
mkdir /home/def_user/backups/current
mkdir /home/def_user/backups/last

You now have a simple directory structure for holding your backup files on the primary server and easily managing them.

**UPDATE - The /home/def_user/bin directory is where the executable scripts you generate in the next step will be stored. In order for them to be functional, you have to tell the system that the executable scripts in this directory can be run without specifying the directory path to the script.

To do this run the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/def_user/bin

Now it will not matter where you are in the directory structure, if you type the name of the script file it will run as it it were a regular linux command. :grin:

Step #3:

Use the nano editor and create the following file named ‘bkup_cycle’ in the new /bin directory

#!/bin/bash
#
# This script performs on backup cycle. A cron job will be used
# to tell this script when to run therby generating the cycle.
#
# First rotate the most recent file out of the current directory
# and into the last holding directory

mv /home/def_user/backups/current/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/backups/last/

# Next just sleep for 2 seconds to let filesystem settle

sleep 2

# Next clear out the oldest records in ~/backups/last

find /home/def_user/backups/last -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql.gz" -print0 | xargs -r0 ls -t | tail -n +16 | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs $

# Next just sleep for 2 seconds to let file system settle

sleep 2

# Now run the backup command

mysqldump -u root -pMySQLpassword 1da3b1049ac21798 | gzip > /home/def_user/backups/current/"$(date '+%m%d-%H%M').sql.gz"

# Next just sleep for 2 seconds to let file system settle

sleep 2

# Move the backup file to the hot spare host...

scp /home/def_user/backups/current/*.sql.gz erp_jmi@192.168.222.111:/home/def_user/drop/

# This should complete the cycle
# BKM - Aug 13,2018 @ 8:24pm

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You are not our of the woods yet… You still have to make this new script file executable. To do this run the following command:

chmod +x ~/bin/bkup_cycle

Now we can move onto the explanations of the lines in the script file:

I am not going to cover the sleep commands here, just the maim important commands that do all the work. So one at a time and in order, here is what they do:

mv /home/def_user/backups/current/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/backups/last/

This command moves the previous backup file out of the /current directory so it is clear for the creation of the next backup file. Previous files are stored in /backups/last/

find /home/def_user/backups/last -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql.gz" -print0 | xargs -r0 ls -t | tail -n +16 | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs $

This command was pretty hard to develop. It uses the linux ‘find’ command and digs into the /backups/last/ directory to remove all but the most recent 15 files. My system makes 15 backup files per day and I keep one day’s worth on hand on the primary server. You can adjust this to whatever number of files you are comfortable having on hand. Just edit the number 16 in “tail –n +16” to be the number of files you want to keep plus 1.

mysqldump -u root -pMySQLpassword 1da3b1049ac21798 | gzip > /home/def_user/backups/current/"$(date '+%m%d-%H%M').sql.gz"

This is the command that runs the database backup. You will need to edit in your mariadb password and your specific database name so this command will work for you. The mariadb password begins with the character immediately following the “-p” so in my case it is MySQLpassword. The next random string of characters is actually the database name. You can find yours by reading the “site_config.json” file for your site. It is very easy to identify there.

scp /home/def_user/backups/current/*.sql.gz def_user@192.168.222.111:/home/def_user/drop/

This last command is the linux Secure Copy command and allows you to securely copy files from on server to another across the internet. Just replace the dummy ip address in this command with the ip address of your standby server.

** ALERT** Before you can expect this command to run from a script via unattended crontab trigger, you must first run the command manually yourself from the command prompt. When you do this it will ask for the password to the user account on the target server. Once you manually answer the password question, the information is stored and it will run unattended from the script after that. This is my experience on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, you mileage may vary :grin:

** ALERT 2 ** If the above method for getting the ‘scp’ command to work does not give you the results you expected, please use the information in this post to fix it:

:open_mouth: Bonus Info :open_mouth:

If you are really smart, you will also have another place on the internet where you can send copies of your backup files for safe keeping. Maybe on a different service provider or even a folder buried in one of your websites. All you have to do is add a 10 second sleep command followed by a second ‘scp’ command to move a copy to another location as well. My actual setup sends files to 3 aditional locations aside from the standby server.

Step #4

From the default linux user account, use the following command to open the nano editor into the crontab list:

crontab -e

Add the following line to the bottom of the list:

58 5-18,23 * * 1-6 /home/erp_jmi/bin/bkup_cycle

Adjust the numbers to best fit your desired frequency of running backups. I do it every hour at 2 minutes before the hour for the busiest 14 hours of the day and then one last time at 2 minutes before midnight. The script runs every day except Sunday. If you are not familiar with crontab syntax, please do a google search for an explanation of each setting and build your string to match your desired number of backup cycles per day.

This completes the setup steps for the primary server. The next group of steps will take place on the standby server so ssh into that server to begin.

Step #5

On the standby server perform the following commands from the default user account:

mkdir /home/def_user/bin
mkdir /home/def_user/drop
mkdir /home/def_user/current
mkdir /home/def_user/local_ready
mkdir /home/def_user/local_restore

This creates the simple directory structure for managing the database backup files generated on the primary server and sent over to this server. You may not wish to keep as elaborate a set of data files as I keep, so adjust this to your own liking.

/bin – is where the script that incrontab runs will be stored.
/drop - is where the inbound fresh database backup file is deposited from the primary server
/current – is where I keep the same 15 files that I keep on the primary server
/local_ready – is where I put a copy of the most recent inbound file (easier to find this way)
/local_restore – is a location I use to unzip a file that I am about to restore to the server

Again, the /home/def_user/bin directory is where the executable scripts you generate in the next step will be stored. In order for them to be functional, you have to tell the system that the executable scripts in this directory can be run without specifying the directory path to the script.

To do this run the following command:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/def_user/bin

Step #6

Use the nano editor and create the following file named ‘cycle_backups’ in /def_user/bin/

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script is triggered by and entry in incrontab.
# When incron detects a new file in the /drop directory it runs this script.
# Ths script moves the newely dropped file from /drop
# to the /current directory and then purges /current down to a size

rm /home/def_user/local_ready/*
sleep 2
cp /home/def_user/drop/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/local_ready/
sleep 4
mv /home/def_user/drop/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/current/
sleep 2
rm /home/erp_jmi/drop/*
sleep 2
find /home/erp_jmi/current -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql.gz" -print0 | xargs -r0 ls -t | tail -n +16 | tr '\n' '\0' | xarg$

# This should complete the movement of files in this test
# BKM - Aug 18,2018 @ 2:48pm

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Also again, you must set the script file to be executable with the following command:

chmod +x ~/home/def_user/bin/cycle_backups

Now you are ready to move on…

Commands in the script explained:

rm /home/def_user/local_ready/*

This command deletes everything in the /local_ready directory so it can receive the new file

cp /home/def_user/drop/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/local_ready/

This command copies the new file from /drop to the now clean /local_ready directory. Note that I also give more sleep time before the next command. On my system the cp command seems to take a little longer to complete and settle that other commands.

mv /home/def_user/drop/*.sql.gz /home/def_user/current/

This command moves the new file out of /drop and into /current directory

rm /home/erp_jmi/drop/*

This command is really optional, but since there is really nothing else that keeps /drop in order I put this in to delete and stray entries that might show up here. I noticed a random file in /drop one time and decided to use this to keep it clean. It just deletes anything leftover.

find /home/erp_jmi/current -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql.gz" -print0 | xargs -r0 ls -t | tail -n +16 | tr '\n' '\0' | xarg$

Again, this command keeps the /current directory purged down to your chosen number of files just like on the primary server.

Step #7

The ‘incron’ utility allows you to constantly monitor a directory and then take action when something changes or is added to the directory. In our case we will be monitoring the /drop directory for new inbound database backup files form the primary server and immediately using a script (from Step #6) to handle all of the files management

From the default linux user account use the following command to install ‘incron’ utility:

sudo apt-get install incron

This will install the incron utility and allow us to use incrontab to run you script later. However, we are not done with ‘incron’ yet. The thing that makes the incron utility even better than the regular ‘cron’ utility is that it requires someone with ‘sudo’ access to tell the utility exactly who is authorized to use incrontab. So, to complete the installation and setup for incron, you need to run the following command:

sudo nano /etc/incron.allow

When the editor opens up, be sure to enter the default linux user account that you have been using everywhere else ( in our example that is def_user ). Then close the editor saving the updated file. If you also wanted the root user to be able to use incrontab then you would add a second to the file for root.

Step #8

Use the following command to open the incrontab editor:

incrontab –e

Add to following line in the editor and save it:

/home/def_user/drop/ IN_CREATE /home/def_user/bin/cycle_backups

Everything is now in place to keep the same set of database backup files on both servers and we are even automatically setting up the most recent file on the standby server for you to easily be able to restore the right file on your first try. When the primary server suffers some major failure, you are already stresses enough and choosing the right file to restore from a list of available files may be a source of further problems if you accidently pick the wrong file. This is why the /local_ready is in place.

You can create other scripts for yourself if you want to further simplify the process. Maybe one to move the file from /local_ready to /local_restore and then unzip the file.

However you want to do it, you need to have an unzipped database backup file so you can run the bench command to restore to the standby server.

BTW… here is the best command to use for running the restore (from ~/frappe-bench):

sudo bench --force --site Your.Site.Name restore ~/local_restore/YourUnzippedFile.sql

Using the above command reduces the chances of getting errors and forces the restore even if the target server is not the same as the source server.

Note: In case you are not familiar with how to create executable script files, the following command should be used after you create the file in order for it to be executable.

chmod +755 ~/bin/script_file_name

For some this might also work:

chmod +x ~/bin/script_file_name

Conclusion:

I know this is maybe not the best way to have a backup system, but it IS a method that even most novices can understand and actually maintain without a great deal of linux or developer knowledge. In my case I set my backups to be every hour during the busy part of the workday. This means that the worst case failure for me would be that the users have to repeat up to an hour of their past work in order to catch up after they login to the standby server.

I also have intentionally NOT made everything too automated. I want to make sure I am asking the users questions before I restore something to the standby system. I want to make sure the file I use is the best file for their current needs.

Recently, I had a primary server failure due to a DNS and DoS attack. The most recent backup on the standby server was only 9 minutes old. It took me a total of 23 minutes to question the users, determine the right path forward, restore the database to the standby server, and get them back to running on the standby server. Total down time was 32 minutes and they only had to repeat 9 minutes of their past work to get caught up. But that could have been as much as one hour due to how I have my Poor Man’s Backup System configured. You need to determine your own comfort level and adjust everything to fit your needs. However, I would not recommend running this process any more frequent than every 15 minutes. Running backups does put a strain on the system when it is heavily used. You will have to balance that yourself.

And finally, I have been asked why I bother to keep so many backup files on hand when you only need the most recent one for a disaster recovery. So there are 2 reasons for this. The first is just in case the disaster interrupts the scheduled backup process, you at least have the one immediately before that to use instead (you know, kind of a Murhpy’s Law protection). The second reason is a bit more insidious when it comes to the cause of the problem.

Over a decade ago, I happened to be a regular user on a system for another company. A disgruntled employee sabotaged the system before she was fired by deleting some important directories and redirecting some regular tasks to perform incorrectly so they would cause further record damage for a while without detection. It was just over 3 business days later before we figured out what had been going wrong with our system. We fortunately had a backup from 5 days prior that we were able to restore to the system. This meant we had 5 days of work to be repeated in order to catch up. However, we DID recover, and that was an important lesson learned. That is the second reason I keep so many backups on hand. The space the backups use is NOTHING compared to the possible tragic loss of business if those files didn’t exist at all.

Again, you will have to determine your comfort level for this.

Bonus Information

In order to keep even more restore opportunities available to my system, I have added an additional set of files for those “just-in-case” times. I keep 6 days of the most recent midnight backups rotating constantly on the standby server. To do this I added a /recent directory and created a regular crontab entry (not incron) on the server that looks like this:

15 0 * * 0,2-6 /home/erp_jmi/bin/cycle_files

And I have another script file called “cycle_files” that takes care of keeping those 6 days of files.

#!/bin/bash
#
# This script will cycle the most recent file in the /current directory to the /recent directory
# and then purge /recent down to the last 6 files. This script is intended to be run by a crontab
# entry at about 12:15am to load the last backup from the previous day into /recent thereby 
# creating a 6 day record of the midnight backups.
# First copy most recent file from /current to /recent

cp $(ls -t /home/def_user/current/* | head -1) /home/def_user/recent
sleep 5

# Now purge  /recent directory down to the last 6 files (hopefully the last 6 midnight backups)

find /home/def_user/recent -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "*.sql.gz" -print0 | xargs -r0 ls -t | tail -n +7 | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs $

# This should complete the rotation of the midnight backup files
# BKM - Aug 18,2018 @ 6:18pm  

This is just a starting point for you to design you own Poor Man’s Backup System. Good Luck!

BKM :sunglasses:

32 Likes

this is nothing but fantastic. thanks for putting this together!

1 Like

s/

/
mysqldump -u root -p MySQLpassword

minor edit needed

1 Like

I will have to politely disagree.

The space actually causes the password to not be recognized (at least in my experience). I had to do a ton of research on this very point. You should try it for yourself to see. On Ubuntu 16.04 and running ERPNext v10 the mariadb/mysql syntax requires there to be no space between the -p and the actual password.

Here is the quote from THIS one resource on the internet…

"In your command, you can’t have a space between -p and the password. Also, mysqldump has to be run on the command line, not in a mysql shell.

Try this on your command line

mysqldump -u username -ppassword databasename > backup.sql "

And here is yet another one calling out the correct syntax… Click Here

"Example:

mysqldump –-user root –-password=myrootpassword db_test > db_test.sql

or

mysqldump –uroot –pmyrootpassword db_test > db_test.sql "

And still another example here… Click Here

"EDIT #1 : Your mysqldump command should now look like,

mysqldump -u root -proot --routines Data1 > Datafile.mysql "

So, Is it possible I am wrong here? Well, possibly. But the scripts I posted are the actual scripts I copied from my running server and posted in this thread. I only edited the actual passwords, usernames, and database file names for security purposes.

Hey, but if doing it with the space works for you, then by all means do it! It just also means that the way I have posted also works.

Everyone else I suggest you try it both ways if you have the time to test this, or just go with what I know already works.

Thank you for reading carefully and paying such close attention to the details. Even though I may disagree with the assessment, I couldn’t ask for a better compliment that to have my work checked and rechecked.

Thank you immensely!!

BKM

2 Likes

Er, um - you’re correct ! From the manual itself:

The password to use when connecting to the server. If you use the short option form (-p), you cannot have a space between the option and the password. If you omit the password value following the --password or -p option on the command line, mysql prompts for one.

I apologize.

`

Thanks. I would be just as okay with going the other way :grin:

BKM

2 weeks ago, one of my clients had their network hacked. All servers were infected with ransomware, which encrypted their files. Every. Single. File.

They would have been okay… except they didn’t have a good backup strategy. Almost all data was permanently lost.

It’s a crazy world. If you care about your data, implement backups. Test them. Simulate a disaster and then test again. Don’t wait, and don’t assume that nothing bad can happen.

“Hope” is not a good backup strategy.

7 Likes

For those that have a similar plan in place then you will understand this next bit of advice:

Go to your chosen cloud VPS vendor today and buy/lease one of the smallest KVM type VPS servers you can get (I just did this for $6/mo). Then have Ubuntu 18.04LTS installed on it and follow that up with a fresh install of ERPNext v10 using the easy install method for a production server. However, do NOT login to the ERPNext as Administrator. Leave everything as not configured. Then SSH into it and use the following command from ~/frappe-bench

sudo supervisorctl stop all

Once completed, use the Image Backup or Snapshot service of your provider to make and store a copy of this tiny server. If you are really cheap, you can probably cancel the server in two weeks and still keep the image backup file for future use.

Afterward, you will have a sort of insurance policy by having an unused but STABLE v10 edition of ERPNext. In the event you need to setup another client in a hurry, you can simply order another small server and have the service provider RESTORE the image to the new server and then expand the server up to what ever size you need it to be.

Judging on how rocky the startup of v10 was, this is just a good business thing to do until you have had time to test the production release of v11 for a few months.

Just a thought. Planning ahead is always a good idea whether for security reasons like disaster planning, or implementation reasons like having a known stable version of your software to spin up when you need it. :sunglasses:

Remember… v11 will be the official release as of tomorrow, so now is the time to setup any fall back plan you might need.

BKM

3 Likes

I have been updating the instructions in the top of this thread today. So, if you have been starting to use the instructions please go back and re-read all of Step #7

The section has been updated to further instruct you on how to configure the incron utility to allow certain users to access it.

*** NOTE: Other updates may also be added over the next 24 hours as I continue to thoroughly test the instructions. I don’t want anyone to ever get stuck when trying to use them. :grin:
As I make further updates, I will come back here and add a another entry to notify you.

BTW… Here is an additional link to more detailed instructions for the incron utility

CLICK HERE

BKM

2 Likes

Updated the instructions again at the top of this thread to cover using the ‘scp’ command from a script in a more reliable method. You can find more details about the issue HERE.

Still refining these instructions but they really pretty complete I think.

BKM :grin:

Well, I found another few steps that I left out of the process in the first post. Fortunately the post editing window has not yet expired so I was able to fix it inline and in the correct order in the steps above.

The offending missing steps were related to making the script files executable and then setting the /bin directory as part of the path the interpreter will use to locate command scripts.

It’s fixed now. My apologies to anyone that may have been struggling to get those scripts working :roll_eyes:

Glad to see so much interest in keeping backups.

BKM

4 Likes

just curious whether there is any particular reason for not using the bench backup command (which does basically the same in the background I believe). This would spare you the MySQLpassword

this would create the backup in a certain location ~/sites/site1.local/private/backups but you could tweak the script to use that as the current folder just alike I guess

Yup. When I originally tried to put the bench command in the the script and run it from a crontab entry, there were occasions where running it in background would time out and since it had been run from a script, I would not know that the backup had failed.

If the backup fails in the script, then everything else in the script that depends on the backup to complete would also fail. Ultimately that meant that I had no valid backups to use in the event of an emergency.

Over time, I found that using mysql commands from the command line showed no such behavior and I never missed a backup.

After this discovery I made a few additional discoveries. Running restore from the bench also had issues when the database approaches 1gb in size. There would be errors reported that didn’t make much sense. So, using the command line to do restores turned out to be a better and faster approach as well.

There just seems to be something about how bench handles the database backups and restores that is prone to problems.

That has been my experience. Your mileage may vary. :sunglasses:

BKM

thx for clarifying.

How do you go about attachments/files? Is it sufficient to restore the files in the ~/frappe-bench/sites/[mysite]/private/files / ~/frappe-bench/sites/[mysite]/public/files folders in order to have a restored ERPNext instance to find them?

Funny you should bring that up just now.

Up to this point I was just always taking the files at the end of he week and using scp manually to move any there were added to the other servers.

However, during an offline conversation with another user this very topic came up last week and I began working on another method of running the backups that will also include the /public/files and the /private/files directories.

It is turning out to be a complete revamp of the process using tar and bundling everything together in a single file again so that moving it across the internet remains as simple as the current method published.

Look for that in the next few days. I have been working on it since Saturday and I am only about 25% finished with it. I want to make sure it is fully tested before I lay it out for everyone else to use. It will likely be called “Step by Step guide to the Poor Man’s Backup System ver2”

I want to keep in in the same line of actions so that anyone can do it using 2 different servers and not have to spend a ton of money on maintaining it. I am currently using the first published method on all of my client servers and it has been wonderful. However, the maintenance of all of those servers every Sunday afternoon manually using ‘scp’ to move all of the files got to be time consuming.

In the new instructions, the files will also be included with every database backup so that you can truly have a complete backup system. It still does not allow for automated restoration of everything because that has it’s own set of issues that I have to figure out.

Keep wathcing this space for the update!!

BKM

nice. looking forward to this. If you put that script on github I may contribute if I a can (i.e. using some VARIABLES here and there, which you haven’t done thus far)

1 Like

You know, that may be a good idea. I am not a programmer or developer and really do not know how to use the GitHub functions aside from reading the entries and posting bug reports on the repos that I follow.

I will make that a point to try to get to figuring out how to do that and have my own place for storing all of these helpful things. I tried to pull them all together in a single thread yesterday and the moderators deleted the entire thread last night. So maybe a github location would work.

I have no idea how to get information into or out of github at this point though because I have never had the time to learn how to use it.

Thanks for the wonderful idea. I will work on learning more about that after I get the backup instructions published here.

BKM

I am sure once you get started with git and a platform like github, bitbucket, …you won’t stop because it makes exactly such efforts much more fun an efficient. Here is one (of many) places to get started

And you are mistaken to think this is for developers. It’s for (collaboratively) working on content in a structured manner and even is very handy when you only cooperate with yourself. Can’t stress enough how helpful git can be.

Oh man now that you have said it I cannot get that out of my head. That really is a great idea.

I am not enough of a script writer to be good with variables so I will ultimately leave that up to you but it just created such a burn in me to get this all figured out now that I can’t get it out of my head.

Sometimes there are things that happen that spark me into a higher level of action. Usually it is the wisdom of people like @clarkej , @brian_pond and several others. Today it was your idea.

Thanks for the supportive ideas.

BKM

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if you create a repo, I’ll provide the variables … promised.

or let me even take this a little further … send me your github id (in PM if you want). I’ll create a basic repository for this backup tutorial and transfer the ownership to you. Then there are not much excuses left to not start with git. I am sure this will even spark you more then the VARIABLES suggestion.