Re: [gentoo-user] Hows this for rsnapshot cron jobs?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On 21/04/2013 20:47, Tanstaafl wrote:
> Ok, my goal is to keep 3 'snapshots' per day (11:30am, 2:30pm and
> 5:30pm), 7 daily's (8:50pm), 4 weekly's (8:40pm), 12 monthly's (8:30pm),
> and 5 yearly's (8:20pm).
> 
> My myhost1.conf has:
> 
> interval        hourly  3
> interval        daily   7
> interval        weekly  4
> interval        monthly 12
> interval        yearly  5
> 
> And my /etc/crontab now looks like:
> 
>> # for vixie cron
>> # $Header:
>> /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-process/vixie-cron/files/crontab-3.0.1-r4,v 1.3
>> 2011/09/20 15:13:51 idl0r Exp $
>>
>> # Global variables
>> SHELL=/bin/bash
>> PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
>> MAILTO=root
>> HOME=/
>>
>> # check scripts in cron.hourly, cron.daily, cron.weekly and cron.monthly
>> 59  *  * * *    root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.hourly
>> 9  3  * * *     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.daily
>> 19 4  * * 6     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.weekly
>> 29 5  1 * *     root    rm -f /var/spool/cron/lastrun/cron.monthly
>> */10  *  * * *  root    test -x /usr/sbin/run-crons &&
>> /usr/sbin/run-crons
>> #
>> # rsnapshot cronjobs
>> #
>> 30 11,14,17 * * * root   rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf
>> sync; rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf hourly
>> 50 20 * * *     root    rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf daily
>> 40 20 * * 6     root    rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf weekly
>> 30 20 1 * *     root    rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf monthly
>> 20 20 1 * *     root    rsnapshot -c /etc/rsnapshot/myhost1.conf yearly

Only the last line is wrong - your monthly and yearly are equivalent.To
be properly yearly, you need a month value in field 4.

I'm not familiar with rsnapshot, I assume that package can deal with how
many of each type of snapshot to retain in it's conf file? I see no
crons to delete out of date snapshots.


And, more as a nitpick than anything else, I always recommend that when
a sysadmin adds a root cronjob, use crontab -e so it goes in
/var/spool/cron, not /etc/crontab. Two benefits:

- syntax checking when you save and quit
- if you let portage, package managers, chef, puppet or whatever manage
your global cronjobs in /etc/portage, then there's no danger that system
will trash the stuff that you added there manually.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com