Creating full backups¶

The Plixer Scrutinizer filesystem includes the backup.sh utility, which automates the creation of full backups. This script is located under home/plixer/scrutinizer/files.

The following instructions cover the process of creating and saving full Plixer Scrutinizer instance backups to a specified remote host:

SSH to the Plixer Scrutinizer server to be backed up and start a tmux session to prevent timeouts:
```
tmux new -s backup
```

Allow others to use FUSE mounts:

sudo grep -Eq "^user_allow_other" /etc/fuse.conf || \
sudo sed -i '$ a user_allow_other' /etc/fuse.conf

Create the backup directory locally and mount it to an empty directory on the remote host:
```
BACKUPDIR=/mnt/backup
sudo mkdir -p $BACKUPDIR
sudo chown plixer:plixer $BACKUPDIR
sshfs -o allow_other -o reconnect REMOTE_USER@REMOTE_HOST:REMOTE_DIRECTORY $BACKUPDIR
```
Important

Verify that the remote directory to be used is empty and there is sufficient storage available, before running the backup script in the next step. For a rough estimate of the backup file size, run the following on the Plixer Scrutinizer instance:
```
BACKUPDIR=/mnt/backup ~plixer/scrutinizer/files/backup.sh ``df -h /var/db | awk '!/^Filesystem/ {print "Space Required: "$3}'`` on the Plixer Scrutinizer instance.
```
Run backup.sh as the plixer user, with the mounted remote directory set as the backup file location:
```
BACKUPDIR=/mnt/backup ~plixer/scrutinizer/files/backup.sh
```
Once the script confirms that the backup file has been saved, unmount the remote backup directory:
```
BACKUPDIR=/mnt/backup
fusermount -u $BACKUPDIR
sudo rmdir $BACKUPDIR
```

Full backup files are created as scrutinizer-VERSION-backup-DATE.tar.gz at the specified location and owned by the plixer user.

Note

A second Plixer Scrutinizer instance can be used as the remote backup host, provided it has sufficient disk space available and is running the same Plixer Scrutinizer version as the instance to be backed up. However, doing so is only recommended for redundancy.
If no remote hosts are available, backups saved locally, on the same Plixer Scrutinizer instance. However, due to the size of full backup files, this will limit the amount of storage available for system functions and is not recommended.

For further details or assistance with issues, contact Plixer Technical Support.

Backing up additional files

When creating a full backup of a Plixer Scrutinizer server, any files not covered by the script must be manually backed up and should be stored on an external host/system.

These files should also be manually restored, after running the restore script.