How I organize my server backups in 2024

Overview and strategy

1. Each service is set up to write daily automatic backups to a local target directory.
2. On my home TrueNAS SCALE, a daily PULL-based Rsync job is set up to collect the content of each VM’s target backup directory.
3. On a remote TrueNAS SCALE, a redundant but independent Rsync PULL job is also configured for each VM’s target backup directory.

Backup automation and dump directory

Some hosted services have application-managed backups. When that is the case, I don’t try to enforce a target directory. I customize the Rsync task with a modified target directory.

For custom builds which have stateful data which must be backed up, a simple shell script executed on a Systemd timer that I wrote invokes tar, and in some cases mysql_dump and pg_dump. Backup file archives and data dumps are organized in /var/local/backups.

Notes

Additional explanation on some component of the diagram.

mail02

A Ditital Ocean VM running mailcow: dockerized.

There is a backup script included which puts backups in /opt/backup.
https://docs.mailcow.email/backup_restore/b_n_r-backup/?h=backup

Unifi

Controller software for Ubiquiti Wi-Fi access point. Installed on an Ubuntu server VM on my home hypervisor.

Application-managed backups are dumped to /var/lib/unifi/backup.

web-02

Custom Apache 2.4 on Ubuntu build for hosting Wordpress and static websites.