Cold backup for the Open Source Edition of Zimbra

Today I’ve setup a cold backup routine to backup my Zimba installation running on my Debian (Etch) 4.0 server that is in full production now for my private domains. This is a slightly modified backup script for the Open Source Edition of Zimbra from the Zimbra Wiki. Please note that the script does a full backup every time it’s being run!

#!/bin/bash

# Zimbra Backup Script
# Requires sftp to run
# This script is intended to run from the crontab as root
# Free to use and free of any warranty!  Daniel W. Martin, 9 Sept 2007

# Live sync before stopping Zimbra to minimize sync time with the services down
# Comment out the following line if you want to try single cold-sync only
rsync -avHK --delete /opt/zimbra/ /backup/zimbra

# which is the same as: /opt/zimbra /backup
# Including --delete option gets rid of files in the dest folder that don't exist at the src
# this prevents logfile/extraneous bloat from building up overtime.

# Stop Zimbra Services
sudo -u zimbra /opt/zimbra/bin/zmcontrol stop
sleep 40

# Sync to backup directory
rsync -avHK --delete /opt/zimbra/ /backup/zimbra

# Restart Zimbra Services
sudo -u zimbra /opt/zimbra/bin/zmcontrol start

# Create a txt file in the backup directory that'll contain the current Zimbra
# server version. Handy for knowing what version of Zimbra a backup can be restored to.
sudo -u zimbra zmcontrol -v > /backup/zimbra/conf/zimbra_version.txt
# or examine your /opt/zimbra/.install_history

# Create archive of backed-up directory for offsite transfer
# cd /backup/zimbra
ZimbraVersion=zimbraBackup-zcs-5.0.1_GA_1902.DEBIAN4.0.20080109200914

tar -zcf /backup/$ZimbraVersion-$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").tgz -C /backup/zimbra .

# Transfer file to backup server using passwordless sftp
scp zimbraBackup-zcs-5.0.1_GA_1902.DEBIAN4.0.20080109200914-$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").tgz username@example.com:/path/to/backupfolder/

I’ve described passwordless ssh/sftp session in a earlier post so I won’t describe the last line of the backup script.