Getting started with Backup gem

I’ve been following this great tutorial to set up the pretty useful Backup gem, which can be used to… surprise! Backup your database.

Instead of using SCP, as the original author did, I’m just creating the backup in my local computer. I’m planning to use Dropbox in a future post. So, this was way simpler, but I had some little problems, so I’m writing this small post as a reminder.

The steps I followed are these:

Install the gem

juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ gem install backup

Run the backup generate:model command, to create the model and config file

 juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ backup generate:model --trigger=db_backup --databases='postgresql' --storages='local' --compressor='gzip' --notifiers='mail'

We should see this output:

 Generated configuration file: '/home/juan/Backup/config.rb'.
 Generated model file: '/home/juan/Backup/models/db_backup.rb'.

We’re editing only the model file, although we could move some general config (like the mail credentials) to the config file.

Edit the model

 juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ subl ~/Backup/models/db_backup.rb

and set whatever needed values, like:

 db.name               = "seven_development"
 db.username           = "juan"
 db.password           = "juan"

Also, in this file, set the tables to be skipped

 db.skip_tables        = ["public.ar_internal_metadata"]

And the mail settings, too

 notify_by Mail do |mail|
     mail.on_success           = true
     mail.on_warning           = true
     mail.on_failure           = true
    
     mail.from                 = "mailer.daemon.seven@gmail.com"
     mail.to                   = "mailer.daemon.seven@gmail.com"
     #mail.cc                   = "cc@email.com"
     #mail.bcc                  = "bcc@email.com"
     #mail.reply_to             = "reply_to@email.com"
     mail.address              = "smtp.gmail.com"
     mail.port                 = 587
     #mail.domain               = "your.host.name"
     mail.user_name            = "mailer.daemon.seven@gmail.com"
     mail.password             = "MyPass"
     mail.authentication       = "plain"
     mail.encryption           = :starttls
 end

To manually run the backup, use this command

 juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ psql -d seven_development -U juan -f ~/Desktop/PostgreSQL.sql -W

The output should be like this

 [2016/09/05 15:49:24][info] Storing '/home/juan/backups/db_backup/2016.09.05.15.49.24/db_backup.tar'...
 ...
 [2016/09/05 15:49:24][warn] Backup for 'Description for db_backup (db_backup)' Completed Successfully (with Warnings) in 00:00:00

To test this, add some data in the DB, and then drop it, and re-create it
```
 juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ rails db:drop db:create
```

Then, restore it (first, unzip the previouslly created file)

 juan@ubuntu:~/seven$ psql -d seven_development -U juan -f ~/Desktop/PostgreSQL.sql -W

That’s it! More on this in my next post.