woxxy / MySQL-backup-to-Amazon-S3
=================================

Amazon S3 can be a ridiculously safe and cheap way to store your important data. Some of the most important data in the world is saved in... MySQL, and surely mine is quite important, so I needed such a script.

If you have a 500mb database (that's 10 times larger than any small site), with the priciest plan, keeping 6 backups (two months, two weeks, two days) costs $0.42 a month ($0.14GB/month). With 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability. Uploads are free, downloads would happen only in case you actually need to retrieve the backup (which hopefully won't be needed, but first GB is free, and over that $0.12/GB).

Even better: you get one free year up to 5GB storage and 15GB download. And, if you don't care about all the durability, later you can get the cheaper plan and spend $0.093GB/month.

The cons: you need to give them your credit card number. If you're like me, Amazon already has it anyway.

Another thing that is real nice: HTTPS connection and GPG encryption through s3cmd. Theorically it's safe enough.

Setup
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1. Register for Amazon AWS (yes, it asks for credit card)
2. Install s3cmd (following commands are for debian/ubuntu, but you can find how-to for other Linux distributions on [s3tools.org/repositories](http://s3tools.org/repositories))

	wget -O- -q http://s3tools.org/repo/deb-all/stable/s3tools.key | sudo apt-key add -
	sudo wget -O/etc/apt/sources.list.d/s3tools.list http://s3tools.org/repo/deb-all/stable/s3tools.list
	sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install s3cmd

3.Get your key and secret key at this [link](https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/account/index.html?ie=UTF8&action=access-key

4. Configure s3cmd to work with your account

	s3cmd --configure
	
5. Make a bucket

	s3cmd mb s3://my-database-backups
	
6. Put the mysqltos3.sh file somewhere in your server, like `/home/youruser`
7. Give the file 755 permissions `chown 755 /home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh` or via FTP
8. Edit the mysqldump line in mysqltos3.sh with your MySQL root credentials

Now we're set. You can use it manually:

	#set a new daily backup, and store the previous day as "previous_day"
	sh /home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh
	
	#set a new weekly backup, and store previous week as "previous_week"
	/home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh week
	
	#set a new weekly backup, and store previous month as "previous_month"
	/home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh month
	
But, we don't want to think about it until something breaks! So enter `crontab -e` and insert the following after editing the folders

	# daily MySQL backup to S3 (not on first day of month or sundays)
	0 3 2-31 * 1-6 sh /home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh day
	# weekly MySQL backup to S3 (on sundays, but not the first day of the month)
	0 3 2-31 * 0 sh /home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh week
	# monthly MySQL backup to S3
	0 3 1 * * sh /home/youruser/mysqltos3.sh month

And you're set.


Troubleshooting
---------------

None yet.