AWS-EC2-Backup-Automation

This project automates the backup of a directory using rsync and sends email notifications upon successful or failed backups. The backups are scheduled using crontab, and an SMTP setup is configured for sending email alerts.

Prerequisites

• An AWS EC2 instance (or any Linux server)
• SSH access to the instance
• Installed rsync tool for efficient file transfer
• Postfix for sending emails via SMTP
• A Google account with an app-specific password for email notifications

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Setup Instructions

1. Create an EC2 Instance

• Launch an AWS EC2 instance and name it “Backup_project”.

• Connect to your EC2 instance via SSH using the following command:

  ssh -i "backup_project.pem" ubuntu@<instance-public-dns>

2. Install rsync

• Install rsync, which is efficient for transferring files as it only copies the differences between the source and destination.

  sudo apt-get install rsync

3. Create a Backup Directory

• Create a directory named backup to store your backup script and log files.

  mkdir ~/backup

4. Create a Shell Script (backup.sh)

• Inside the backup directory, create a shell script named backup.sh to automate the backup process.

  nano ~/backup/backup.sh

• Add the necessary commands in backup.sh, including the username, IP, source, and destination directories.

Example script:

#!/bin/bash

SOURCE_DIR="/home/ubuntu/code/"
DESTINATION_DIR="/home/ubuntu/backup/"
LOG_FILE="/home/ubuntu/backup/backup.log"
TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S")
EMAIL="[email protected]"

rsync -avz --delete $SOURCE_DIR $DESTINATION_DIR >> $LOG_FILE 2>&1

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "$TIMESTAMP: BACKUP SUCCESSFUL" >> $LOG_FILE
    echo "Backup was successful at $TIMESTAMP" | mail -s "Backup Success" $EMAIL
else
    echo "$TIMESTAMP: BACKUP FAILED" >> $LOG_FILE
    echo "Backup failed at $TIMESTAMP" | mail -s "Backup Failed" $EMAIL
fi

5. Create a Directory for Backup

• Create the directory that you want to back up automatically. For this example, the directory is named code.

  mkdir ~/code

6. Schedule Automatic Backups Using crontab

• Use crontab to schedule automatic backups every day at 5:40 PM.

  crontab -e

• Add the following line to the crontab file to run the backup script daily at 5:40 PM:

  40 17 * * * /home/ubuntu/backup/backup.sh

7. Manual Backup Command

• If you want to manually view the crontab list or schedule, use:

  crontab -l

8. Log File

• After each backup (whether successful or failed), the log will be stored in backup.log located in the backup directory.

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Email Notification Setup (SMTP using Postfix)

9. Configure Postfix for Email Notifications

• In the /etc/postfix folder, change the method for SMTP protocol and set inet_protocols to ipv4 only. Open main.cf and modify the configuration:

  sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf

• Add the following lines to configure Gmail SMTP:

  relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
  smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
  smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
  smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
  smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
  smtp_use_tls = yes

10. Generate an App-Specific Password for Gmail

• Create a Google App-specific password for Gmail (since direct login using Gmail is not allowed). Use this password in the SMTP configuration.

11. Create the sasl_passwd File

• Create a file named sasl_passwd in the /etc/postfix folder to store your Gmail SMTP credentials:

  sudo nano /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

• Add the following content to the sasl_passwd file (replace with your actual email and app-specific password):

  [smtp.gmail.com]:587 [email protected]:your-app-specific-password

• Secure the sasl_passwd file and postmap it:

  sudo chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
  sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

12. Restart Postfix

• Restart the Postfix service to apply the changes:

  sudo systemctl restart postfix

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Troubleshooting & Monitoring

13. Check Mail Logs

• Use the following command to monitor mail logs:

  sudo tail -f /var/log/mail.log

14. Check the Mail Queue

• Use the following command to check the mail queue list:

  postqueue -p

• To remove a particular mail from the queue by its post ID:

  postsuper -d post_id

• To remove all mails from the queue:

  postsuper -d all

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

This is a comprehensive `README.md` file detailing the steps taken for setting up the automatic backup, configuring email notifications, and troubleshooting the setup.