Copy Backup Files to a Remote Location

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Note

This information applies to both Backup V1 and Backup V2.

Creation of a backup is a prerequisite for copying the backup file to a remote location. The execution of the script copies the backup files to a remote location. This requires admin access to the Alation host.

To copy the backup:

1. Create a script that copies the backup to the destination location. Ensure that it recognizes the %f variable that will be passed from Alation when the script is run. This variable passes the path to the backup.

   Example script:

   FILE_TO_RSYNC=$1
   DESTINATION=host.example.com
   DESTINATION_PATH="/backup/alation/"
   SSH_USER="alation"
   SSH_KEY="/home/site_data/rsync_key.pem"
   rsync -avi -e "ssh -i ${SSH_KEY} -l ${SSH_USER}" "${FILE_TO_RSYNC}" "${DESTINATION}:${DESTINATION_PATH}"
   

2. Place the script to /data1/site_data in the Alation shell.

   Note

   The backup scripts must be stored in /data1/site_data. This location prevents them from being deleted during an update.

3. Enable the script execution using alation_conf. Enter the Alation shell:

   sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell
   

4. Enable the script:

   alation_conf alation.backup.post_script.enabled -s True
   

5. Specify the path to the script, substituting the <backup_script_example.sh> with the actual file name. The input variable %f must be recognized by the script.

   alation_conf alation.backup.post_script.path -s "/data1/site_data/<backup_script_example.sh> %f"
   

6. Set the permission to execute the script.

   chmod +x /data1/site_data/<backup_script_example.sh>
   

The script will run after every manual or automatic backup and copy the backup to the destination location.