Install and configure rsnapshot for central backup (without root privilege)

Download and install RsnapShot
Download the latest package from: http://rsnapshot.org/downloads.html

# wget http://rsnapshot.org/downloads/rsnapshot-1.3.1-1.noarch.rpm
# rpm -Uvh rsnapshot-1.3.1-1.noarch.rpm

Configure public key authentication

- Enable public key authentication with remote hosts with normal user privilege

local# ssh-keygen -t rsa
local# scp id_rsa.pub ssh-remote-server:id_rsa.pub

remote# useradd -c "Backup user" -d /data/home/backup/ backup
remote# su - backup

remote# vi .ssh/authorized_keys

remote# chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys

remote# cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys ; rm id_rsa.pub

Add the command allowed to execute in the authorized_keys

command="/home/backup/validate-rsync.sh"

Create the /home/backup/validate-rsync.sh script with following contents

#!/bin/sh
case "$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND" in
  *\&*)
    echo "Rejected 1"
    ;;
  *\;*)
    echo "Rejected 2"
    ;;
    rsync*)
    $SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND
    ;;
  *true*)
    echo $SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Rejected 3"
    ;;
esac

$ chmod 700 validate-rsync.sh

Create the rsync wrapper script

$ cat  > /usr/local/bin/rsync_wrapper.sh

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync "$@";

# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/rsync_wrapper.sh

This steps will basically force the ssh connection to execute the rsync as sudo

Grant user to execute rsync as root

backup    ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync

Configure Rsnapshot

master# cp /etc/rsnapshot.conf.default /etc/rsnapshot.conf

Configure path for cp, rsync, ssh, logger, du etc

set link_dest = 1

change rsync_long_args like

rsync_long_args --rsync-path=rsync_wrapper.sh --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded

If you require daily backup for a week,

interval daily 7

More details are on the how to section for rsnapshot website
http://rsnapshot.org/howto/1.2/rsnapshot-HOWTO.en.html

Configure the hosts and file system to backup

backup      backup@remotehost:/etc/     remotehost/

./arun

 

 

 

 

Upgrading php to 5.2 or 5.3 in Redhat EL 5

Unfortunately RHEL 5 does not have php.5.2 package, which is required by most of the applications including latest wordpress and drupal.

First thought of compiling php from source, but hard to keep it uptodate. So decided to make the life easier with EPEL/IUS repositories.

Remove all existing php related packages:

# rpm -e php php-mysql php-cli php-pdo php-common

Download and install the EPEL/IUS RPMs

# wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/i386/epel-release-1-1.ius.el5.noarch.rpm

# wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/i386/ius-release-1.0-8.ius.el5.noarch.rpm

incase if the list not working just browse and find the rpm.

Install the RPMs

# rpm -Uvh *-release-*.rpm

Now you can install php 5.2 or 5.3 like:

# yum install php52 php52-mysql

./arun