Manage backups with bu-tools

bu-tools is a shell script easing the management of backup software such as Backup Manager. It offer a standardized method to manage the list of backed-up paths.

This howto is tested on:

• Debian 10.0 Buster

Requirements

This howto recommends:

• biapy-updater, for automatic software updates.

This howto recommends one of these backup softwares:

• Backup Manager, as described by Install Backup Manager on Debian.

Installation

Detect if sudo is available (“command” is used if not):

cmdProxy='command'
command type -f 'sudo' &>'/dev/null' && cmdProxy='sudo'

Application’s installation

Install the tool:

${cmdProxy} wget 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/biapy/howto.biapy.com/master/backup-tools/bu-tools' \
    --quiet --no-check-certificate --output-document='/usr/local/bin/bu-tools'

Declare the downloaded file as executable:

${cmdProxy} chmod +x '/usr/local/bin/bu-tools'

Automatic updates

Configure biapy-updater automatic updates to check for new versions of the software:

${cmdProxy} tee -a '/etc/biapy-updater.conf' <<< 'bu-tools'

Usage

List the backup targets (a.k.a. backed-up paths):

sudo bu-tools --list

Add a path to backup targets:

sudo bu-tools --add='/path/to/data'

Remove a path from backup targets:

sudo bu-tools --remove='/path/to/data'

Clean-up backup targets (remove missing paths):

sudo bu-tools --cleanup

Get help on advanced usage of the tool :

command bu-tools --help

Thanks

• Thanks to George Khaznadar for his work on my script backup-manager-tools.
• Thanks to prince_jammys on irc.freenode.net#bash for pointing me to How can I handle command-line arguments to my script easily? (en) on Greg’s Wiki (en).
• Thanks to Andy Skelton (en) for Bash equivalent for PHP realpath() (en).