backups.md

Create an image of the SD card and save it on a network share

we will be using image utilities, found at the following link: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=332000

Create a network share

First create an SMB/CIFS share called 'backup'

SSH to the Pi

1. install sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

2. Add your credentials (i.e., your SMB user and password) to nano ~/.storage_credentials

3. username=[username] #type it in as-is, without the []
   password=[your password] #type it in as-is, without the []

4. chmod 0600 ~/.storage_credentials so only the owner can read it

5. create your local backup director by cd to /etc/ and sudo mkdir backup

6. nano /etc/fstab to mount your smb:

7. #backups
   //[IP]/backup /home/[username]/backup cifs credentials=/home/[username]/.storage_credentials,x-systemd.automount,iocharset=utf8,rw,uid=1000,gid=1000,vers=3.0 0 0
   
   #replace your [IP] and [username] in the entry above

Add Image File Utilities

1. mkdir ~/bin

2. Extract the image file utilities from the first post here into that /home/[user]/bin and make all items executable

3. cd /image-utils

Make a backup

1. sudo ./image-backup
2. enter the name ``/mnt/backup/pi_backup.img, then hit enter then y` when prompted to start the backup. Wait patiently.

Setup scheduled backups

1. sudo nano backups to create a backup script, add:

2. #!/bin/bash
   
   BUFPATH="/mnt/backup/"
   BUFNAME="pi_backup_"
   BINPATH="/etc/local/bin/image-backup"
   
   CURDATE="$(date +%F)"
   BUSDATE="$(sed -n 's|^\(\S\+-\S\+\)-.*$|\1|p' <<< ${CURDATE})"
   CURFILE="$(ls ${BUFPATH}${BUFNAME}${BUSDATE}-??.img 2>/dev/null | sed -n "s|^\(${BUFPATH}${BUFNAME}${BUSDATE}-\S\+\.img$\)|\1|p")"
   if [ "${CURFILE}" = "" ]; then
     sudo "${BINPATH}" -i "${BUFPATH}${BUFNAME}${CURDATE}.img,,100"
   else
     sudo "${BINPATH}" "${CURFILE}"
   fi

3. crontab -e, then add:

4. 0 4 * * * /home/[user]/backup