Offline backup of AWS machine

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xpd

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#240641 18-Sep-2018 14:15

I need an offline backup of a machine running on AWS - poking around it dosent appear to be something that can be done easily, such as using a Veeam type of backup etc. Is rsync my best option from the machine itself ? (Its running Ubuntu)

And if rsync is best option, any hints/tips ? Never used it before :D

TIA

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

LinkTree

BarTender

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#2092718 18-Sep-2018 18:14

What are you trying to backup? Normally you use a cloud formation template to deploy and know exactly where the files or databases go. Then just chuck them onto a s3 bucket then migrate to glacier and you're done.
Plus a Google of "backup ec2 ami to s3" gives you.
https://n2ws.com/blog/how-to-guides/automate-amazon-ec2-instance-backup

timmmay

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#2092834 18-Sep-2018 20:36

What exactly are you trying to achieve? AWS is very reliable, can do backups itself (snapshots), you can load balance VMs across availability zones (data centers in the same country) to achieve high availabililty.

There is no easy way to create a backup of an AWS VM outside of AWS, unless you imported it into AWS. If you created it in AWS it's difficult.

You can create snapshots, which are saved to a private / hidden part of S3. You can copy the files inside the instance anywhere you like - but good luck getting the OS to work again with permissions / ownership / etc.

Copying your data and config out is easy - rsync or any other method you like. Typically this is the best thing to do, have a script that builds a new instance (CloudFormation / Puppet / etc) then add your data and configuration, and off you go. I do this using restic / borg backup, upload to S3, then download anywhere else. I used to send it to Dropbox as well.

amanzi

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#2092924 19-Sep-2018 00:13

Similar to @bartender's response - use an automation tool to deploy and configure the VM, but if you want to restore outside of AWS then use something like Ansible for this instead of Cloud Formation which only works with AWS. Then you just need to worry about backing up and restoring your data and there are lots of command line tools for this too which can be integrated into your deployment playbook.