Server Backup

A professional PHP backup system for creating and managing backups of your files and databases.

Features

• Filesystem backups with tar and gzip compression
• MySQL database backups with customizable options
• Support for database-only or filesystem-only backups
• Multiple backup configurations for different sources
• Flexible backup rotation policy (daily and monthly backups)
• Automated cleanup of old backups
• Email notifications for backup status
• Configurable file exclusions
• Detailed logging with rotation
• Minimal console output with comprehensive log files
• Secure command execution
• PHP 8.3 compatible

Server Requirements

This project has a few system requirements:

• PHP >= 8.0 (optimized for PHP 8.3)
  • The script uses features like match expressions that require PHP 8.0+
  • If your server's default PHP is older, you can specify a newer version using the php_command setting
• Linux/Unix operating system
• MySQL client tools (for database backups)
• tar utility (for filesystem backups)
• gzip utility (for compression)

How To Install

1. Clone this repository to a private folder on your server
2. Make scripts executable: chmod +x backup.php backup
3. Copy config.example.php to config.php and set secure permissions: chmod 600 config.php
4. Edit config.php with your backup settings (see Configuration section below)
5. Run the backup script: ./backup.php
6. Set up a cronjob for automatic backups (see Automation section)

Configuration

The config.php file contains all settings for your backups. Here's an example:

return [
    // Filesystem backups
    'filesystems' => [
        [
            'slug'        => 'production',
            'source'      => '/var/www/mysite',
            'destination' => 'storage/website',
            'exclude'     => [
                'var/cache/*',
                'var/log/*',
                '.git',
                'node_modules',
            ],
        ],
    ],
    
    // Database backups
    'databases' => [
        [
            'slug'        => 'production',
            'destination' => 'storage/databases',
            'db_host'     => 'localhost',
            'db_user'     => 'dbuser',
            'db_password' => 'dbpassword',
            'db_name'     => 'mydatabase',
        ],
    ],
    
    // Retention policies
    'keep_daily_backups'   => 30,  // Days to keep daily backups
    'keep_monthly_backups' => 12,  // Months to keep monthly backups
    
    // Logging configuration
    'log_file' => 'logs/server-backup.log', // Path to log file
    'log_level' => 1, // 0 = errors only, 1 = info (default), 2 = debug
    'log_max_size' => 5 * 1024 * 1024, // Maximum log file size (5MB)
    'log_files_to_keep' => 5, // Number of rotated log files to keep
    
    // Notification settings
    'notifications' => [
        'email' => [
            'enabled'       => false,           // Set to true to enable email notifications
            'to'            => '[email protected]',  // Recipient email address
            'from'          => '[email protected]', // Sender email address
            'subject'       => 'Backup Report',      // Email subject prefix
            'always_notify' => false,           // Set to true to send emails even on success
            
            // SMTP configuration (optional)
            'smtp' => [
                'host'     => 'smtp.example.com',    // SMTP server address
                'port'     => 587,                   // SMTP port
                'username' => 'smtp-user',           // SMTP username
                'password' => 'smtp-password',       // SMTP password
                'secure'   => 'tls',                 // 'ssl', 'tls', or empty
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

Configuration Options

Backup Types

The script supports three different backup configurations:

1. Both filesystem and database backups - Configure both the filesystems and databases arrays
2. Database-only backups - Leave the filesystems array empty or remove it completely
3. Filesystem-only backups - Leave the databases array empty or remove it completely

Filesystem Backup Options

• slug: Identifier for the backup (used in filenames)
• source: Directory to back up (absolute or relative path)
• destination: Where to store backups (absolute or relative path)
• exclude: Array of patterns to exclude (using tar pattern format)
• verbose: Whether to show detailed output (default: false)

You can configure multiple filesystem backups by adding additional entries to the filesystems array.

Database Backup Options

• slug: Identifier for the backup (used in filenames)
• destination: Where to store backups (absolute or relative path)
• db_host: Database host address
• db_user: Database username
• db_password: Database password
• db_name: Database name
• tables: Optional list of specific tables to back up (empty array = all tables)
• db_socket: Optional MySQL socket path
• db_port: Optional MySQL port
• mysqldump_command: Optional custom path to mysqldump
• command_timeout: Optional timeout in seconds for database backups
• mysqldump_options: Optional array of additional mysqldump options

You can configure multiple database backups by adding additional entries to the databases array.

Logging Options

• log_file: Path to log file (relative to the script directory or absolute)
• log_level: Logging detail level (0 = errors only, 1 = info, 2 = debug)
• log_max_size: Maximum size of log file before rotation in bytes (default: 5MB)
• log_files_to_keep: Number of rotated log files to keep (default: 5)

The script uses a minimal console output approach - only critical messages and a summary are shown in the console, while comprehensive details are written to the log file. This keeps the console output clean and readable.

PHP Configuration

• php_command: Specify which PHP command to use for CLI operations (default: 'php')
  • This is useful for servers with multiple PHP versions installed
  • Examples: 'php83', 'php84', '/usr/bin/php83'
  • This setting is particularly important for shared hosting environments where the default PHP may be older than required

Retention Options

• keep_daily_backups: Number of days to keep daily backups (default: 30)
• keep_monthly_backups: Number of months to keep monthly backups (default: 12)

Notification Options

• enabled: Set to true to enable email notifications
• to: Recipient email address
• from: Sender email address
• subject: Email subject prefix
• always_notify: Set to true to send emails even on successful backups (default: only sends on failures)
• smtp: SMTP configuration (optional, only needed if PHP mail() defaults don't work)

Automation

To run backups automatically, add the script to your crontab:

# Run backups daily at 2:00 AM
0 2 * * * /path/to/backup

If you need to specify a specific PHP version for your cron job:

# Run backups daily at 2:00 AM with PHP 8.3
0 2 * * * /path/to/backup --php=php83

Alternatively, configure the PHP command in your config.php file:

'php_command' => 'php83',

Security Best Practices

• Run the backup script as a user with appropriate filesystem permissions
• Store backups in a location not accessible via the web server
• For secure offsite backups, consider setting up automated transfers to a remote server
• Set restrictive permissions on config.php (600) to protect database credentials

Backup Retention and Cleanup

The backup system automatically manages file retention according to your configuration:

// Retention policies
'keep_daily_backups'   => 7,   // Days to keep daily backups
'keep_monthly_backups' => 3,   // Months to keep monthly backups

The cleanup system follows these rules:

1. Monthly backups: Backups created on the first day of each month are considered monthly backups. The system keeps one backup per month for the specified number of months.

2. Daily backups: All other backups are considered daily backups and are kept for the specified number of days.

3. Monthly retention: If there's no monthly backup for a month within the monthly retention period, the system will keep the newest daily backup from that month as a representative.

The script uses accurate date calculations to determine which backups to keep, ensuring reliable retention regardless of the specific settings you choose.

Note: The backup script supports specifying the PHP version to use, either via the --php= command line parameter or through the php_command setting in your config.php file. This is particularly useful on servers where the default PHP version is too old to support this script (requires PHP 8.0+).