<img src=“https://codeclimate.com/github/mmarschall/s3db-backup.png” />

s3db-backup for Rails¶ ↑

Its good practice to have a backup of your database ready at some other place than your production setup in case anything goes badly wrong there. And its a good idea to test your backups regularily. This gem will help you do both in a snap.

Backup Your MySQL Database To Amazon S3¶ ↑

To get your data out of your own data center and store it somewhere save, amazon S3 is a great candidate. But, of course, you do not want to let anyone be able to read your application database. That’s why s3db-backup is encrypting your dump before sending it to amazon S3.

Requirements¶ ↑

As s3db-backup is using standard Unix tools for the heavy lifting, please make sure you have the following installed on your machine:

• mysqldump (comes with the mysql client, should be there)

• gzip (never saw a system without it)

• ccrypt (you might need to install it: apt-get install ccrypt (Debian, Ubuntu), yum install ccrypt (Redhat, CentOS), or brew install ccrypt (Mac OS X using homebrew))

And, of course, you’ll need to sign up for an Amazon S3 account and create a bucket using the AWS Management Console (or any other way)

Getting Started¶ ↑

s3db-backup only supports MySQL databases and works from within a Rails application. Here are the steps to get you started:

• Install the s3db-backup gem

  sudo gem install s3db-backup
  

  Alternatively you can simply add it to your Gemfile and run bundle install.

• Run the s3db_config generator to generate the necessary config files and rake tasks NOTE: This currently works only in a Rails 3.x app. You can create the files manually in your Rails 2.x app. Everything will run fine from there on.

  $ rails generate s3db_config

This will generate the following files: config/s3_config.yml, db/secret.txt, and lib/tasks/db.rake

• Store your AWS access credentials and your desired S3 buckets in the new config/s3_config.yml:

  aws_access_key_id: "<your aws access key here>"
  secret_access_key: "<your aws secret key here>"
  
  production:
      bucket: "my_app-production"
  
  development:
      bucket: "my_app-development"

s3db-backup expects the buckets you name there to exist. Please make sure they do (using the Amazon AWS Management Console or any other Amazon Management Tool)

• Put a long and random string as your encryption/decryption key for ccrypt into db/secret.txt

  $ echo "my secret key" > db/secret.txt

Running a Backup¶ ↑

Dumping, encrypting, and uploading your current database is now as easy as typing one command:

$ rake s3db:backup

When its done, go to your amazon S3 bucket and see your shiny new backup file there!

Restoring a Backup Using rake¶ ↑

To be able to fetch your backups from S3 and load them into your environment (development or production) you can use a set of rake tasks defined in lib/tasks/s3db_backup.rake:

• Fetch the latest backup from S3 to your local disk as db/latest_prod_dump.sql:

  $ rake s3db:latest:fetch

Now you can either load that SQL dump with any tool you like or use a second rake task:

• Load that dump into your environment:

ATTENTION: This step will DROP your database and re-create it from your backup. Be careful when applying to your production environment. You have been warned!

$ rake s3db:latest:load

Restoring a Backup Manually¶ ↑

I do not trust in backup systems, which do everything on their own. In emergency I want to be able to restore my data manually. As s3db-backup only uses standard Unix tools for the job, its pretty easy. Here are the steps to manually restore your database

• Download the latest backup from your Amazon S3 bucket e.g. mysql-my_app-production-22-09-2010-11h24m10s.sql.gz.cpt

• Decrypt the file using your key from db/secret.txt

  ccdecrypt mysql-my_app-production-22-09-2010-11h24m10s.sql.gz.cpt

• Unzip the SQL file

  gunzip mysql-my_app-production-22-09-2010-11h24m10s.sql.gz

• Re-create your database

  rake db:create
  

• Load the dump into mysql

  mysql -u <your_db_user> -p <your_db> < mysql-my_app-production-22-09-2010-11h24m10s.sql

Now you should have your DB restored.

Note on Patches/Pull Requests¶ ↑

• Fork the project.

• Make your feature addition or bug fix.

• Add tests for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

• Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)

• Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Copyright¶ ↑

Copyright © 2010 - 2012 Matthias Marschall. See LICENSE for details.