Features

• Creates local compressed backups of files and MySQL/MariaDB databases
• Works with any type of web service (PHP, Node, ASP, Perl, etc...)
• Option to limit the amount of backups to keep
• Sync or upload to any remote or cloud service (Google Drive, OneDrive, SFTP, S3, Dropbox, etc...) thanks to rclone backend
• Pure Bash script: no PHP, no Python, no NodeJS

Requirements

• mysqldump: part of MySQL or MariaDB package, for database backups. Usually included in Linux shared hosts.
• curl: to download the files, included in most Linux distros
• gzip, xz or bzip2: to create archives, included in most Linux distros
• tar: to create archives, included in most Linux distros

Instructions

1. Install and configure a local copy of rclone. The example script setup_rclone.sh should help but if you don't have access to the shell, you can create the config file elsewhere and then upload to the scripts root folder.

#!/bin/bash
# Install/update a local instance of rclone inside the script folder and run "rclone config"

echo Deleting old version...
rm -r rclone

echo Downloading the new version....
curl -O https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip

echo Unzipping downloaded file...
unzip rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip

echo Organizing folders...
rm rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip
mv rclone-* rclone

echo Running rclone config...
./rclone/rclone --config=rclone.conf config

echo DONE!

2. Configure the script: ~/wiki-backup/autobackup.sh

#!/bin/bash
#----------------------------------------------------------
# PHP + MySQL backup script
# By Daniel B.P. ([email protected])
# Version 1: 09/03/2025
#----------------------------------------------------------
#Configuration

filesSource=~/public_html/my_site/wiki #source dir
filesDest=~/wiki-backup/backups/files #local archive destination
filesBkpKeep=4 #4 equals 3 files to keep (n-1)

dbHost=localhost #source database host name or IP
dbPort=3306 #source database port number
dbName=site_wiki #source database name
dbUser=site_wiki #source dabase user name
dbPass=PASSWORD_PASSWORD_PASSWORD
dbDest=~/wiki-backup/backups/db #local archive destination
dbBkpKeep=5 #5 equals 4 files to keep (n-1)

rcloneDir=~/wiki-backup/rclone #leave like this if using the setup script
rcloneConfig=~/wiki-backup/rclone.conf #this file should be created after running the setup script
rcloneRemoteName=REMOTE1 #this is the name of the remote given in rclone config
filesRemoteDest=/files #remote files archive destination
dbRemoteDest=/db #remote DB archive destination

#----------------------------------------------------------

# Welcome
echo --------------------------
echo PHP + MySQL backup script
echo "$(date +'%d/%m/%Y %H:%M')"
echo --------------------------

# Set filenames
timestamp=$(date +%F-%H%M%S)
fileZipName="${timestamp}_files.tar.xz"
sqlZipName="${timestamp}_db.sql.xz"

# Prepare directories
mkdir -p $filesDest
mkdir -p $dbDest

# Backup files to local folder
echo Backup files...
tar -cJf $filesDest/$fileZipName $filesSource

# Backup database to local folder
echo Backup database...
mysqldump -P $dbPort -h $dbHost -u $dbUser -p$dbPass $dbName \
| xz > $dbDest/$sqlZipName

# Purge old backups
echo Purge old backups...

# Cleanup files
find $filesDest -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%Ts\t%p\n' \
| sort -rn \
| tail -n +$filesBkpKeep \
| cut -f2- \
| xargs -r rm

# Cleanup databases
find $dbDest -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%Ts\t%p\n' \
| sort -rn \
| tail -n +$dbBkpKeep \
| cut -f2- \
| xargs -r rm

# Sync remote
echo Remote sync...

# Sync files
$rcloneDir/rclone sync $filesDest \
$rcloneRemoteName:$filesRemoteDest \
--verbose --config="${rcloneConfig}"

# Sync databases
$rcloneDir/rclone sync $dbDest \
$rcloneRemoteName:$dbRemoteDest \
--verbose --config="${rcloneConfig}"

# Done
echo DONE!

3. Configure CRON

Every week

0 	0 	* 	* 	0 	/home1/site/wiki_backup/autobackup.sh

Modifications to use gzip compression

Faster and lower resources compression, lowest compression rate.

• xz to gzip
• tar -cJf to tar -czf
• .xz to .gz

Modifications to use bzip2 compression

Between gzip and xz in terms of compression rate and resource use.

• xz to bz2
• tar -cJf to tar -cjf
• .xz to .bz2

rclone copy instead of sync

The files in the remote destination will not be deleted during the cleanup.

#alternative version with copy (infinite uploads)
$rcloneDir/rclone copy $filesDest \
$rcloneRemoteName:$filesRemoteDest \
--verbose --ignore-existing --config="${rcloneConfig}"