Creating Scheduled Automatic Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Files Backup using CRON and TAR

A guide for creating backup scripts and scheduling them to run daily, weekly, and monthly.

Creating Backup Scripts

1. Create a backup directory to store the backup scripts and files, and navigate into this directory.

   1
    $ mkdir backups && cd backups
   

2. Create daily, weekly, and monthly directories to store backups.

   1
    $ mkdir daily weekly monthly
   

3. Create a backup scripts to run.

   1
   2
    # nano <name>-backup.sh; example:
    $ nano daily-backup.sh
   

1. Type the following code:

   1
   2
   3
   4
   5
   6
   7
    # LINUX:
    tar -zcf <store_backup_dir>/<backup_file_name>-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C <file_or_folder_dir> <file_or_folder_to_backup>
   
    # BSD:
    tar -zcf <store_backup_dir>/<backup_file_name>-`date +%Y%m%d`.tar.gz -C <file_or_folder_dir> <file_or_folder_to_backup>    
   
    find <store_backup_dir>/* -mtime +<num_of_days> -delete
   

   The first line has the commands:

   • tar compresses files to a tar format
   • -zcf means gzip compress into a file
   • <store_backup_dir> implies the full path to the directory where you want to store the backup file
   • <backup_file_name> implies the name of the backup file
   • $(date +%Y%m%d) appends the current date of when the backup file is generated
   • .tar.gz is the backup file extension
   • -C means change directory to where the file to be backed up is located
   • <file_or_folder_dir>implies the full path to the directory where the file of folder to back up is located
   • <file_or_folder_to_backup> is the name of the file or folder to be backed up

   The second line has the commands:

   • find searches files
   • <store_backup_dir>/* refers to all backup files located in the backup folder
   • -mtime + to filter files created ago
   • <num_of_days> specifies the number of days to filter
   • -delete command that deletes old backup files that were filtered

   example using daily backup:

   1
   2
   3
    # Daily backup for last 7 days
    tar -zcf /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/daily/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /Users/ray/Desktop/ assets/
    find /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/daily/* -mtime +7 -delete
   

1. Run script to check if it works.

   1
   2
   3
   4
    $ sh daily-backup.sh
    $ cd daily && ls # backup file should be created
    $ tar -xzvf backup-<date>.tar.gz
    $ ls # backup file should be extracted
   

1. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for weekly and monthly scripts. Input your desired number of days to filter in <num_of_days> parameter. Weekly backup for the last 5 weeks would be +31, and monthly backup for the last 5 months would be +100.

   Example for weekly:

   1
   2
   3
    # Weekly backup for last 5 weeks
    tar -zcf /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/weekly/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /Users/ray/Desktop/ assets/
    find /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/weekly/* -mtime +100 -delete
   

   Example for monthly:

   1
   2
   3
    # Monthly backup for last 4 months
    tar -zcf /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/monthly/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /Users/ray/Desktop/ assets/
    find /Users/ray/Desktop/backups/monthly/* -mtime +100 -delete
   

Schedule Script Execution Using Cron

1. Type crontab -e in the terminal
2. Schedule your script to run at specific times. Use https://crontab.cronhub.io/ for easier cron creation Example:

   1
   2
   3
    15 0 1 * * sh <path_to_script>/backup-monthly.sh
    15 0 * * * sh <path_to_script>/backup-daily.sh
    15 0 * * 1 sh <path_to_script>/backup-weekly.sh
   

3. Save and exit file
4. Check backup files after a few days to verify if worked.

• Previous
  Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) Basic Terminal Commands
• Next
  Creating Wordpress Admin User Directly from MySQL