Backup Server Configurations to Git

When you have multiple servers it pain to remember every configuration and it may take hours to configure servers again incase you need.
It is also impractical to copy each files.

There are few tools available but they come with overhead attached moreover its fun to write custom solutions 🙂

1. Create directory
2. cd into it.
3. Initialize git
4. Add a remote
5. Create branch specifically for that server
6. Check out branch
7. Add shell script
8. Make a commit and push to server.

mkdir backup
cd backup/  
git init
git remote add [email protected]:tikaj/ConfigurationBackups.git
git branch $(hostname)
git checkout $(hostname)

#This file contains space delimited configuration file name and path relative to git.
touch ConfigurationFiles.list

vi backup.sh

Content of backup.sh

#!/bin/bash
BASEDIR=$(dirname $0)

cd $BASEDIR

while read line; do 
 IFS=' ' read -a A <<< "$line"
 cp ${A[0]} $BASEDIR/${A[1]} 
done < ConfigurationFiles.list


#Add new files and commit changes
git add --all :/
git commit -m "Update configuration files."
git push origin  $(hostname)
 

Then, Don't forget to generate SSH key adding key to your git server.

git push -u origin  $(hostname)

Now i can either setup a cron job or add command to daily backup script to update configuration files.
using

ssh [email protected] "bash /root/backup/backup.sh"

from remote.