rotate_tar_or_rsync_backup

Rotate tar or rsync backup: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and hourly.

It is written for unix like systems with tar, and rsync installed.

Deployemnt

Script configuration

Change configuration variables in bash version script or config.json for python version.

bash version supports just tar

SRC_DIR="/srv/gits"
BACKUP_DIR="/srv/backups"
PROJECT_NAME="gits"
BACKUP_RETENTION_HOURLY=12
BACKUP_RETENTION_DAILY=6
BACKUP_RETENTION_WEEKLY=3
BACKUP_RETENTION_MONTHLY=3
BACKUP_RETENTION_YEARLY=0

• Set to propper path to interpreter #!/usr/bin/env python3

• Ensure that backup paths exists before you enable backup.

• Adjut unit files and ansible playbooks, it is intended for git server setup.

mkdir -p /srv/{gits,backups}

Use ansible playbook

Systemd links

• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.time.html#
• https://documentation.suse.com/smart/systems-management/html/systemd-working-with-timers/index.html
• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.exec.html

Systemd debugging

systemd-analyze verify gitsBackup.*
systemd-run --user --wait ./backup.sh
sudo systemctl edit --force --full  gitsBackup.timer
sudo systemctl edit --force --full  gitsBackup.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload 
sudo systemctl enable --now gitsBackup.service
sudo systemctl enable --now gitsBackup.timer
systemctl status gitsBackup

Backup structure

gits-hourly-2025:03:07-06:00:00.tar.gz 
... # hour increments in hourly retention range
gits-hourly-2025:03:07-17:00:00.tar.gz
gits-daily-2025:03:07.tar.gz
gits-daily-2025:03:06.tar.gz
gits-daily-2025:03:05.tar.gz
gits-daily-2025:03:04.tar.gz
gits-daily-2025:03:03.tar.gz
gits-weekly-2025:03:02.tar.gz # doubes as daily
gits-daily-2025:03:01.tar.gz  # in ocasion weekly doubles as daily, so you have temporarrly +1 daily retention period
gits-weekly-2025:02:23.tar.gz
gits-weekly-2025:02:16.tar.gz
gits-monthly-2025:03:01.tar.gz
gits-monthly-2025:02:01.tar.gz
gits-yearly-2025:01:01.tar.gz  # doubles as monthly

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Inspiration for rotation from forked gist https://gist.github.com/adrianbiro/22fa0362fe1a510eb00fe11dced759d4