https://gitlab.com/tozd/docker/rdiff-backup-remote

Available as:

• tozd/rdiff-backup-remote
• registry.gitlab.com/tozd/docker/rdiff-backup-remote

tozd/base ← tozd/dinit ← tozd/mailer ← tozd/cron ← tozd/rdiff-backup-remote

• 1: rdiff-backup 1.2.8
• 2: rdiff-backup 2.2.6

• /config: Configuration files.
• /backup: Destination to where the backup is made.

• RDIFF_BACKUP_SOURCE: Remote location from which to backup. Example: user@example.com::/
• RDIFF_BACKUP_EXPIRE: How long to keep past versions, provided as a string according to time formats section of rdiff-backup man page. Default is 12M for 12 months.

Docker image providing daily backups with rdiff-backup. The main purpose is to backup remote machines to a local backup volume. Using rdiff-backup gives you direct access to the latest version with past versions possible to be reconstructed using rdiff-backup. Past changes are stored using reverse increments.

For local host backup instead of remote backup, consider tozd/rdiff-backup Docker image.

Use a config volume /config for config files and mount a directory to where you want to store the backup to /backup volume.

If you want to configure only parts of the remote machine to be backed up, you can provide a /config/backup.list file which is passed as include-globbing-filelist to rdiff-backup. Example:

+ /etc
+ /home
+ /root
+ /var/log
+ /usr/local/bin
+ /usr/local/etc
+ /usr/local/sbin
- /

This file configures that /etc, /home, /root and parts of /var and /usr are backed up, while the rest of the remote machine is ignored. Consult section file selection of rdiff-backup man page for more information on the format of this file.

For rdiff-backup to be able to connect to the remote machine, a SSH key pair should be generated:

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -f backup_rsa

Do not set any password on key pair. This generates two files, backup_rsa and backup_rsa.pub. You should add (append) contents of the backup_rsa.pub file to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the remote machine for the user which you are planing to use to connect to the remote machine. Put both generated files into /config/.ssh directory inside the /config volume.

You should also configure SSH client inside the Docker container to use the private key for the connection to the remote machine. You can do this by creating a config file inside /config/.ssh. For example:

Host example.com
    HostName example.com
    User user
    Port 22
    IdentityFile /config/.ssh/backup_rsa

Important is to configure IdentityFile to point to the private key file.

Moreover, you should create known_hosts file inside /config/.ssh, with the fingerprint of the remote machine's public key:

$ ssh-keyscan example.com > known_hosts

/config volume should generally contain the following files:

/config/backup.list
/config/.ssh/backup_rsa
/config/.ssh/backup_rsa.pub
/config/.ssh/config
/config/.ssh/known_hosts

Remote machine should:

• Have rdiff-backup installed at /usr/bin/rdiff-backup.
• Have the user used to connect to the machine configured with sudo NOPASSWD so that rdiff-backup can obtain root permissions automatically.
• Have a SSH public key added to user's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.

To get e-mails with any errors during daily backups, you have also to configure MAILTO, ADMINADDR, and REMOTES environment variables as described in tozd/mailer and tozd/cron Docker images.

There is also a read-only GitHub mirror available, if you need to fork the project there.