NAME

charon.ftp - remove backup files that exceed a certain age from an FTP aite

SYNOPSIS

charon.ftp --host host [--ssl] --user name (--password password | --readpassword) [--dir directory] --maxage days (--profile identifier | --all) [--truncate] [--dry-run] [--verbose] [--help]

The program charon.ftp removes backup archives created by tartarus from an FTP server once they reach a certain age and expire. Files that are older than the number of days specified on the command line are considerer candidates for removal unless other, non-expired backups are based on them, so full backups may survive longer than expected.

OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS

--host server

Specify the FTP server to connect to

--ssl

Use SSL to secure the connection (requires Net::FTPSSL)

--user name

Define the username to authenticate with

--password pass

Set the password to authenticate with

--readpassword

Instead of specifying the password on the commandline, it can also be read from the standard input. This is preferable for obvious security reasons.

--dir

Specify the directory on the server the backups files are stored in.

--maxage n

Set the maximum number of days after which a backup is expired.

--profile name

Set the profile name to process. This is mandatory unless --all is supplied.

--all

When this is set, the expiration date is applied to alle files found on the server and identified as tartarus backups.

--truncate

This option enables replacing files with /dev/null on FTP server before deletion. Some FTP servers won't allow deleting files when the quota is reached, this flag enables a workaround.

--dry-run

This option prevents charon from actually deleting files.

--verbose

This option makes charon more verbose about the actions made

--help

This parameter shows a brief command reference.

EXAMPLE

Using the script is fairly simple and can probably be best explained by looking at an example:

    $ charon.ftp --host safehaven --user john --password SECRET --dir / --maxage 7 --profile home --verbose --dry-run

This command line will try to log into the server "safehaven" using the user name "john" and his password "SECRET" and remove backup file from the profile "home" with are more than 7 days old. Due to the command line switch "--dry-run", no files are actually deleted - the script will only explain its potential actions in its output.

Integration with Tartarus

Charon does not (and in fact, cannot) read tartarus backup profiles; by using hooks however it can be called from Tartarus after completing a successfull backup run. This way, Tartarus can pass the configuration variables to Charon:

    # Hook in Charon
    TARTARUS_POST_PROCESS_HOOK() {
        # pass configuration variables to charon
        # transmit the password through stdin to hide it from "ps ax"
        local CHARON="/usr/sbin/charon.ftp"
        local MAX_AGE_IN_DAYS="7"
        echo -n "$STORAGE_FTP_PASSWORD" | $CHARON \
            --host "$STORAGE_FTP_SERVER" --user "$STORAGE_FTP_USER" \
            --readpassword \
            --dir "$STORAGE_FTP_DIR" \
            --maxage "$MAX_AGE_IN_DAYS" \
            --profile "$NAME"
    }

TARTARUS_POST_PROCESS_HOOK will only be executed in case of a successfull backup, so there won't be any files removed if tartarus encounters an error during the new backup creation.

AUTHOR

Stefan Tomanek <stefan.tomanek@wertarbyte.de>