Remote storage¶

django-dbbackup comes with a variety of remote storage options and it can deal with Django Storage API for extend its possibilities.

You can choose your storage backend by set settings.DBBACKUP_STORAGE, it must point to module containing the chosen Storage class. For example: dbbackup.storage.filesystem_storage for use file system storage. Below, we’ll list some of the available solutions and their options.

Storage’s option are gathered in settings.DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS which is a dictionary of keywords representing how to configure it.

Note

A lot of changes has been made for use Django Storage API as primary source of backends and due to this task, some settings has been deprecated but always functionnal until removing. Please take care of notes and warnings in this documentation and at your project’s launching.

Warning

Do not configure backup storage with the same configuration than your media files, you’ll risk to share backups inside public directories.

Local disk¶

Dbbackup uses built-in file system storage to manage files on a local directory.

Note

Storing backups to local disk may also be useful for Dropbox if you already have the offical Dropbox client installed on your system.

Setup¶

To store your backups on the local file system, simply setup the required settings below.

DBBACKUP_STORAGE = 'dbbackup.storage.filesystem_storage'
DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS = {'location': '/my/backup/dir/'}

Available Settings¶

location - Default: Current working directory (os.getcwd)

Absolute path to the directory that will hold the files.

Warning

settings.DBBACKUP_BACKUP_DIRECTORY was used before but is deprecated. Backup location must no be in settings.MEDIA_ROOT, it will raise an StorageError if settings.DEBUG is False else a warning.

file_permissions_mode - Default: settings.FILE_UPLOAD_PERMISSIONS

The file system permissions that the file will receive when it is saved.

Amazon S3¶

Our S3 backend uses Django Storage Redux which uses boto.

Setup¶

In order to backup to Amazon S3, you’ll first need to create an Amazon Webservices Account and setup your Amazon S3 bucket. Once that is complete, you can follow the required setup below.

pip install boto django-storages-redux

Add the following to your project’s settings:

DBBACKUP_STORAGE = 'dbbackup.storage.s3_storage'
DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS = {
    'access_key': 'my_id',
    'secret_key': 'my_secret',
    'bucket_name': 'my_bucket_name'
}

Available Settings¶

Note

More settings are available but without clear official documentation about it, you can refer to source code and look at S3BotoStorage‘s attributes.

access_key - Required

Your AWS access key as string. This can be found on your Amazon Account Security Credentials page.

Note

settings.DBBACKUP_S3_ACCESS_KEY was used before but is deprecated.

secret_key - Required

Your Amazon Web Services secret access key, as a string.

Note

settings.DBBACKUP_S3_SECRET_KEY was used before but is deprecated.

bucket_name - Required

Your Amazon Web Services storage bucket name, as a string. This directory must exist before attempting to create your first backup.

Note

settings.DBBACKUP_S3_BUCKET was used before but is deprecated.

host - Default: 's3.amazonaws.com' (boto.s3.connection.S3Connection.DefaultHost)

Specify the Amazon domain to use when transferring the generated backup files. For example, this can be set to 's3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com'.

Note

settings.DBBACKUP_S3_DOMAIN was used before but is deprecated.

use_ssl - Default: True

Note

settings.DBBACKUP_S3_IS_SECURE was used before but is deprecated.

default_acl - Required

If bucket doesn’t exist, it will be created with the given ACL.

Warning

The default ACL is ‘public-read’, please take care of this possible security issue.

Dropbox¶

In order to backup to Dropbox, you’ll first need to create a Dropbox Account and set it up to communicate with the Django-DBBackup application. Don’t worry, all instructions are below.

Setup Your Dropbox Account¶

Login to Dropbox and navigate to Developers » MyApps. https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/setup#python
Click the button to create a new app and name it whatever you like. For reference, I named mine ‘Website Backups’.
After your app is created, note the options button and more importantly the ‘App Key’ and ‘App Secret’ values inside. You’ll need those later.

Setup Your Django Project¶

pip install dropbox

...And make sure you have the following required project settings:

DBBACKUP_STORAGE = 'dbbackup.storage.dropbox_storage'
DBBACKUP_TOKENS_FILEPATH = '<local_tokens_filepath>'
DBBACKUP_DROPBOX_APP_KEY = '<dropbox_app_key>'
DBBACKUP_DROPBOX_APP_SECRET = '<dropbox_app_secret>'

FTP¶

To store your database backups on the remote filesystem via FTP, simply setup the required settings below.

Setup Your Django Project¶

Note

This storage will be updated for use Django Storage’s one.

Warning

This storage doesn’t use private connection for communcation, don’t use it if you’re not sure about the link between client and server.

Using FTP does not require any external libraries to be installed, simply use the below project settings:

DBBACKUP_STORAGE = 'dbbackup.storage.ftp_storage'
DBBACKUP_FTP_HOST = 'ftp.host'
DBBACKUP_FTP_USER = 'user, blank if anonymous'
DBBACKUP_FTP_PASSWORD = 'password, can be blank'
DBBACKUP_FTP_PATH = 'path, blank for default'

Available Settings¶

DBBACKUP_FTP_HOST - Required

Hostname for the server you wish to save your backups.

DBBACKUP_FTP_USER - Default: None

Authentication login, do not use if anonymous.

DBBACKUP_FTP_PASSWORD - Default: None

Authentication password, do not use if there’s no password.

DBBACKUP_FTP_PATH - Default: '.'

The directory on remote FTP server you wish to save your backups.

Note

As other updated storages, this settings will be deprecated in favor of dictionary settings.DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS.

Django built-in storage API¶

Django has its own storage API for managing media files. Dbbackup allows you to use (third-part) Django storage backends. The default backend is FileSystemStorage, which is integrated in Django but we invite you to take a look at django-storages-redux which has a great collection of storage backends.

Setup using built-in storage API¶

To use Django’s built-in FileSystemStorage, add the following lines to your settings.py:

DBBACKUP_STORAGE = 'dbbackup.storage.builtin_django'
# Default
# DBBACKUP_DJANGO_STORAGE = 'django.core.file.storages.FileSystemStorage'
DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS = {'location': '/mybackupdir/'}

'dbbackup.storage.builtin_django' is a wrapper for use the Django storage defined in DBBACKUP_DJANGO_STORAGE with the options defined in DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS.

Used settings¶

DBBACKUP_DJANGO_STORAGE - Default: 'django.core.file.storages.FileSystemStorage'

Path to a Django Storage class (in Python dot style).

Warning

Do not use a Django storage backend without configuring its options, otherwise you will risk mixing media files (with public access) and backups (strictly private).

DBBACKUP_STORAGE_OPTIONS - Default: {}

Dictionary used to instantiate a Django Storage class. For example, the location key customizes the directory for FileSystemStorage.

Write your custom storage¶

If you wish to build your own, extend dbbackup.storage.base.BaseStorage and point your settings.DBBACKUP_STORAGE to 'my_storage.backend.ClassName'.