Backups | Duplicity

Bulk Storage is a perfect destination for backups and archived data, and there are a number of Backup solutions that support Swift as a backend, a quick search turns up the following list:

This is a quick example on how to use configure and start using Duplicity to backup files to Cloud-A's Bulk Storage service on an Ubuntu 12.04 server.

Installing Dependencies

You'll need to first install the python and rsync dev libraries.

Ubuntu or Debian:

apt-get install python-dev librsync-dev

CentOS, Fedora < 22, or RHEL:

yum install python-devel librsync-devel

Fedora >= 22:

dnf install python-devel librsync-devel

pip install python-swiftclient
pip install python-keystoneclient
pip install lockfile

Download and Install Duplicity

You'll need at least version 0.6.26 of Duplicity to have swift support which should be provided by most distributions at this point.

Ubuntu or Debian:

apt-get install duplicity

CentOS, Fedora < 22, or RHEL:

yum install duplicity

Fedora >= 22:

dnf install duplicity

Configure Authentication

You'll need to export a couple key environment variables for Duplicity to work correctly. After you have everything working, I'd highly suggest adding these to a more permanent location on your server so you can automate your backups more easily.

Keystone Authentication

You can get your and from API Access in your Account details.

export SWIFT_USERNAME=<TENANT_NAME>:<USERNAME>
export SWIFT_PASSWORD=<PASSWORD>
export SWIFT_AUTHURL=https://keystone.ca-ns-1.clouda.ca:8443/v2.0
export SWIFT_AUTHVERSION=2

Container Keys Authentication

You will first need to create a container by clicking "New Container" on the Containers page. Then click "Keys", and "Generate Initial Keys." You'll want to use the "Full Access Key" as your

.

You can get your from API Access in your Account details.

export SWIFT_USERNAME=<TENANT_ID>:Full-Key
export SWIFT_PASSWORD=<Container Key>
export SWIFT_AUTHURL=https://ca-ns-1.bulkstorage.ca:8444/keys_auth/<container_name>
export SWIFT_AUTHVERSION=2

Execute your first backup!

The first backup with Duplicity will be a full backup, and subsequent backups will be incremental and take much less time to complete. Although our example uses the "--no-encryption" option, we highly suggest configuring the backup encryption for your data. For the sake of expediency, we'll throw caution to the wind.

is the same container you created before.

duplicity --no-encryption /dir/to/backup swift://<container_name>

If you're interested in how it stores full and incremental backups, you can view the container in your dashboard at https://dash.clouda.ca/project/containers/my_backups and see your backup data in action!

Restore your backup

Restoring backups are just as easy as creating them. Here's an example of a full restore!

duplicity --no-encryption swift://my_backups /dir/to/restore

For more information on using Duplicity, check their official docs page: http://duplicity.nongnu.org/docs.html. There is a wealth of information available for this powerful and flexible backup tool.

Still need help? Get in touch!
Last updated on 8th Jun 2016