Regularly backing up the system data is an essential part of any system administrator. Setting up and managing all backup manually is a very difficult task for any system administrator. SnapShooter offers a web-based dashboard to take daily and hourly incremental backups of your server file and directory. SnapShooter makes it easy to schedule frequent backups for your servers, websites and databases. It also allows you to view and download your backup and restore it when you want by just clicking a button.
"Snapshooter is a must-have tool for incremental backups. It has many backup options and works with every major cloud provider" Kevin Sahin - ScrapingBee.com
In this post, we will show you how to do incremental tar backups with snapshooter
Sign Up on SnapShooter
First, go to the SnapShooter website and register for their 14-day free trial. A trial period will allow you to back up one server for free forever.
After registering, log into the SnapShooter dashboard as shown below.
When you logging into your dashboard first time, you’ll need to create a team. Provide your team name and click on Create Team.
After creating your team, you can invite other members to your team and manage your billing settings.
Create Your First Incremental Backup with SnapShooter
First, you will need to create an incremental backup job from the SnapShooter dashboard.
Scroll down on the dashboard and click on Incremental File. You should see several options for backup.
Click on Server File to create server file incremental backup job.
Provide your backup name and click on Continue. You should see the following screen.
Here, you will need to add your server to the SnapShooter. To do so, copy the code shown in the above dashboard then login to your server and past it as shown below:
curl -sSL "https://ingestor.snapshooter.com/api/server/add?You should get the following output:
token=eyJpdiI6IlZ0Tnd5YlQvWVNxdsInZhb1JyTEJTUT09IiwibWFjIjoiZjU1M zMwZmE1MGQwmZGMyNTE1MzhkODIzMDVlOWUxOWUxMjM3MWE5OTJmYyJ9&key=5106" | bash Welcome to SnapShooter Server Setup Environment Detected: OS: linux, OS Type: amd64 Installing SSH public key Creating temp SSH key file grep: /root/.ssh/authorized_keys: No such file or directory cp: cannot stat '/root/.ssh/authorized_keys': No such file or directory Creating authorized_keys backup /root/.ssh/authorized_keys.bak-1625548173 Key Installed /root/.ssh/authorized_keys Removing temp SSH key file Scanning SSH config Checking 22 matched (22) SSH test confirmed, Server Added to SnapShooter ...Now, go back to the SnapShooter dashboard. You should see your added server in the following screen.
Click on the Next button. You should see the backup configuration page.
Here, type the path of the directory that you want to backup, define compression level and click on Test button. If the test is successful. You should see the following screen:
Now, click on the Save and Next button. You should see the Storage selection screen:
Here, you will need to choose the storage server that you want to use for backup. Click on Use SnapShooter Storage. You should see the following screen:
Select your Storage region and click on Create Bucket button. You should see the following screen:
Click on Set Storage button. You should see the backup schedule configuration screen:
Define your backup schedule, set your retention policy and click on Set Schedule and Finish button. You should see the preview of your backup configuration in the following screen:
Now, click on Backup Now button to run your first backup. Once the backup has been completed successfully, you should see the following screen:
From here, you can download your backup to your local system and also restore it to the server.
How to Restore a Backup with SnapShooter
The main reason for backups is to keep your files safe in case of data loss or unfavourable change. SnapShooter provides an easier way to restore your backup to the server.
To restore any specific backup, go to your server dashboard as shown below:
Next, find the backup that you want to restore and click on Manage button. You should see the following screen:
Click on the Restore button to restore your backup to the server. Once the restoration process has been completed successfully, you should see the following screen.
Once restored, you can find the original version of your files copied to the server.
Conclusion
In the above guide, you learned how to do an incremental backup with SnapShooter. In addition to supports file-level backups to any S3 compliant object storage, SnapShooter is also able to operate native backup solutions across a number of cloud providers.