svnbackup scripts collection README

    svnbackup scripts is collection of bash script for doing versioned 
( revisioned ) backups of configuration files based on subversion VCS.

Contents:
0. The Idea
1. Description
2. Usage


0. The Idea

    The idea is to get versioned configuration files with opportunity
to view changes ( diffs ) of that files. Versioning is achieved by saving
files into subversion VCS. So, it is possible can get content
of file as it was in the very beginning of server's life.
As additional feature, commit diffs can be sended with post-commit scripts
for example as email messages and reviewed by admins' eyes :)

WebSVN ( http://websvn.tigris.org/ ) and ViewSVN ( http://viewsvn.berlios.de/ )
are recommended as webviewers.

1. Description

 svnbackup-backup.sh - client side script which does checkouts and commits
 svnbackup-create_repo.sh - helper script for repository creation on server

    The real work is done by svnbackup-backup script - it connects to svn
server, which is served, for example, by svnserve, does checkout of current
configuration into tmp dir, copyies local files into that dir and then,
if there are any changes, does commit.

Local data copy is done via rsync(1) which can be said to ignore some
dirs and files.

Connections to remote repository can be done with any type supported
by subversion client. Default and the only tested scheme is svn://somehost/ .

It is assumed that you have one or more servers to be backuped and on
central server which acts as repositories holder for them.


Messages about current work status & errors are sent to stdout and syslog
via logger(1) . If there are no problems, there should be nothing on stdout,
syslog only. Such mode is situable to be running from cron(8)

2. Usage

To make script do it's job there are several conditions to be met

1) configured subversion repository for server to be backuped
You can read about subversion repo configuration and administration on 
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/svn.reposadmin.html . For your pleasure
there is svnbackup-create_repo.sh script which should take care of creating
repo, setting password and installing post-commit hook.


2) proper config file

There are several settings in config file which should be configured.
Please note, that config file is just regular bash script, so any bash
features can be used within it.

svnbackup-backup.sh ( client ) settings:
SERVER - should contain servername. This name is used as standalone repository.
         it is ok to use some shell substitution like SERVER=`hostname`

LOCKFILE - path to lockfile, used to prevent several script instances to run

STATEFILE - path to file which will be updated after successful operation
            this file contains data in such format:
            TIMESTAMP TIMETAKEN
            where TIMESTAMP is value produced by $(date +%s) and is seconds
            since epoch, TIMETAKEN - time, in seconds, taken to complete
            operation. As file is updated only on success, it
            can be used by some monitoring agents, like Nagios.

#remote svn repository related settings

SVNUSER - who will has r/w access to repository, suggested value is "svnbackup"
          this value has't be system user, but rather svnserve user, read more
          on subversion docs
SVNPATH - path used to connect to repo, like svn://remote.server.com

SVNREPOTMP - where temporary checkouted copy should live on client

include_dir - sets one or more paths to be backuped, can be used like:
include_dir=/etc
include_dir=/var/lib/dpkg
include_dir=/root/bin


svnbackup-create_repo.sh wanna read these extra settings from config:

REPOOWNED - user:group string represents owner and group for repository.
            this is useful if your svnserve is being runned under dedicated
            account. Format is in chown(1) style.
            It's not bad to use "svnbackup:svnbackup" as user:owner.

REPOSPATH - path to hold all repositories, end slash matters. 
            Repo for particular server will be located under this path, i.e.
            if REPOSPATH=/var/lib/svnbackup , then repo for server server1.com
            will be stored in /var/lib/svnbackup/server1.com

INSTALLPCHOOK - should we install post-commit hook template? Set to "YES" if
                you want enable this feature. Simple sh based hook template is
                included, you may wish to change default address for emails.

PCHOOK_TMPL - path to post-commit hook template. On debian based system it 
              should be located in /usr/share/svnbackup/templates/post-commit.tmpl

3) command line switches

svnbackup-backup.sh accepts these command line options:
-c     path to config file
-I     should be used for first run, to make subversion client save password and such
-h     shows help

svnbackup-create_repo.sh
-c     path to config file
-H     hostname we should create repository for
-h     shows help


Also there is gonna be debian init script to start svnserve and accordinal
configuration files.