django-caretaker 0.5.0

A Django app for backups using cloud storage.

django-caretaker

django-caretaker ('The Caretaker') is a Django app that backs up your database and media files to a versioned remote object store, such as an AWS S3 bucket. It comes with the Terraform files to provision the required cloud infrastructures (e.g. S3 bucket) and provides management commands to schedule regular backups.

Install

To install the module, use pip:

pip install django-caretaker

Add 'caretaker' to your installed apps in your Django settings file.

Add 'path('caretaker/', include('caretaker.urls')),' to your urls.py file to enable the /caretaker/list view.

Setup and Configuration

Configure a backend and access rights

django-caretaker has the ability to support multiple cloud-based object store backends. At the moment, we have support for either Amazon S3 or local storage.

Amazon S3 / IAM

Ensure that you have a working AWS cli client and configure it if not.

Set the BACKUP_BUCKET variable in your settings.py file. This must be a globally unique name for the S3 bucket. You should also set the MEDIA_ROOT folder so that we know what to back up:

CARETAKER_BACKUP_BUCKET = 'caretakertestbackup'  # put the name of the backup instance here
CARETAKER_ADDITIONAL_BACKUP_PATHS = ['/home/user/path1', '/home/user/path2']  # put additional paths to backup here
CARETAKER_BACKEND = 'Amazon S3' # note that this is case sensitive
CARETAKER_FRONTEND = 'Django'  # note that this is case sensitive
MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/media'  # add your MEDIA ROOT to backup

The CARETAKER_BACKENDS list allows you to specify the available backends. The CARETAKER_BACKEND variable selects the backend to use (there is only S3 at the moment). The same is true of CARETAKER_FRONTENDS and CARETAKER_FRONTEND (which only support Django at the moment).

Generate and run Terraform configuration in your home directory:

./manage.py get_terraform --output-directory=~/terraform_configuration
cd ~/terraform_configuration
terraform init
terraform apply
terraform output --json

Note down the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY and put them in your settings.py file:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = 'PUT_ACCESS_KEY_HERE'
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = 'PUT_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY_HERE'

Local Storage

Instead of using a remote cloud location, caretaker will allow you to store your backups locally. Obviously, it is important that you mirror these backups to other off-site locations.

To configure the local storage backend, adjust your settings.py file to contain (for example):

CARETAKER_BACKUP_BUCKET = 'caretakertestbackup'  # put the name of the backup instance here
CARETAKER_ADDITIONAL_BACKUP_PATHS = ['/home/user/path1', '/home/user/path2']  # put additional paths to backup here
CARETAKER_BACKEND = 'Local' # note that this is case sensitive
CARETAKER_FRONTEND = 'Django'  # note that this is case sensitive
MEDIA_ROOT = '/var/www/media'  # add your MEDIA ROOT to backup
CARETAKER_LOCAL_STORE_DIRECTORY = '/path/to/where/you/store/backups'  # specify where to store the backups
CARETAKER_LOCAL_FILE_PATTERN = '{{version}}.{{date}}'  # this is the recommended format of backup files

There is no Terraform configuration for the local backend.

Install the Backup Script in Cron

To install a cron line that will run the backup daily at 15 minutes past midnight on the server, run:

./manage.py install_cron --action=test
./manage.py install_cron

Usage

Caretaker provides a number of management commands that can be accessed from manage.py:

Run Backup

This is the most important command. It backs up your database and your media files to the remote store.

Usage: manage.py run_backup [OPTIONS]

  Pushes LOCAL-FILE to the latest version of REMOTE-KEY

Options:
  --version                      Show the version and exit.
  -h, --help                     Show this message and exit.
  -v, --verbosity INTEGER RANGE  Verbosity level; 0=minimal output, 1=normal
                                 output, 2=verbose output, 3=very verbose
                                 output.  [0<=x<=3]
  --settings SETTINGS            The Python path to a settings module, e.g.
                                 "myproject.settings.main". If this is not
                                 provided, the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
                                 environment variable will be used.
  --pythonpath PYTHONPATH        A directory to add to the Python path, e.g.
                                 "/home/djangoprojects/myproject".
  --traceback / --no-traceback   Raise on CommandError exceptions.
  --color / --no-color           Enable or disable output colorization.
                                 Default is to autodetect the best behavior.
  -a, --additional-files TEXT    Additional directories to add to the zip file
  -b, --backend-name TEXT        The name of the backend to use
  -f, --frontend-name TEXT       The name of the frontend to use
  -s, --sql-mode                 Whether to output SQL instead of standard
                                 JSON
  -d, --database TEXT            The database to use
  -a, --alternative-binary TEXT  The alternative binary to use
  --alternative-arguments TEXT   The alternative arguments to use
  --data-file TEXT               The data filename to use
  --archive-file TEXT            The archive filename to use

Example usage:

manage.py run_backup --output-directory=~/backup -a /home/user/dir1 -a /home/user/dir2

Push Backup

This command pushes a backup to the server.

Usage: manage.py push_backup [OPTIONS] REMOTE_KEY LOCAL_FILE

  Pushes LOCAL-FILE to the latest version of REMOTE-KEY

Options:
  --version                      Show the version and exit.
  -h, --help                     Show this message and exit.
  -v, --verbosity INTEGER RANGE  Verbosity level; 0=minimal output, 1=normal
                                 output, 2=verbose output, 3=very verbose
                                 output.  [0<=x<=3]
  --settings SETTINGS            The Python path to a settings module, e.g.
                                 "myproject.settings.main". If this is not
                                 provided, the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
                                 environment variable will be used.
  --pythonpath PYTHONPATH        A directory to add to the Python path, e.g.
                                 "/home/djangoprojects/myproject".
  --traceback / --no-traceback   Raise on CommandError exceptions.
  --color / --no-color           Enable or disable output colorization.
                                 Default is to autodetect the best behavior.
  -b, --backend-name TEXT        The name of the backend to use
  -f, --frontend-name TEXT       The name of the frontend to use

Example usage:

manage.py push_backup --backup-local-file=/home/obc/backups/data.json --remote-key=data.json

Pull Backup

This command retrieves a backup file from the server. You must also specify the version you wish to retrieve.

Usage: manage.py pull_backup [OPTIONS] REMOTE_KEY LOCAL_FILE BACKUP_VERSION

  Saves BACKUP-VERSION of REMOTE-KEY into LOCAL-FILE

Options:
  --version                      Show the version and exit.
  -h, --help                     Show this message and exit.
  -v, --verbosity INTEGER RANGE  Verbosity level; 0=minimal output, 1=normal
                                 output, 2=verbose output, 3=very verbose
                                 output.  [0<=x<=3]
  --settings SETTINGS            The Python path to a settings module, e.g.
                                 "myproject.settings.main". If this is not
                                 provided, the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
                                 environment variable will be used.
  --pythonpath PYTHONPATH        A directory to add to the Python path, e.g.
                                 "/home/djangoprojects/myproject".
  --traceback / --no-traceback   Raise on CommandError exceptions.
  --color / --no-color           Enable or disable output colorization.
                                 Default is to autodetect the best behavior.
  -b, --backend-name TEXT        The name of the backend to use
  -f, --frontend-name TEXT       The name of the frontend to use

Example:

manage.py pull_backup --remote-key=data.json --backup-version=jB1dtbf1qraDQhBlKGGDXKAZugEnT2KB --out-file=/home/user/data.json

Restoring a Backup

Restoring a backup consists of the following steps. First, find the backups that you want:

manage.py list_backups --remote-key=data.json
manage.py list_backups --remote-key=backup.tar.gz

You can use grep to find a specific date.

Then pull the files down:

manage.py pull_backup --remote-key=data.json --backup-version=<INSERT_BACKUP_VERSION_ID> --out-file=/home/user/data.json
manage.py pull_backup --remote-key=backup.tar.gz --backup-version=<INSERT_BACKUP_VERSION_ID> --out-file=/home/user/backup.tar.gz

Unzip backup.zip and replace the media folders with the results.

Reload the database:

manage.py loaddata /home/user/data.json

You can also reload the database and media files using the built-in command:

manage.py import_backup data.json|data.sql|media.zip

Oracle support

SQL export is not available for Oracle. It's a nightmare to get Oracle tools installed on our testing systems. Hence, Oracle systems will have to use the old dumpdata methods.

SQLite support

We do not support in-memory SQLite databases for import_file operations. It's not possible to destroy and reload the in-memory database through Django, which is what we do with the on-disk equivalent.

Credits

• A context manager for files or stdout by Wolph.
• AWS CLI for interactions with AWS.
• Captured output by Rob Kennedy.
• Django for the ORM and caching system.
• django-click for command-line management commands.
• django-dbbackup for hints and tips.
• Git from Linus Torvalds et al.
• .gitignore from Github.
• How to read large Popen calls using select by vz0.
• Rich for beautiful output.
• Terraform by Hashicorp.

Test Coverage

Package	Line Rate	Branch Rate	Health
.	100%	100%	✔
backend	100%	100%	✔
backend.backends	100%	100%	✔
backend.backends.terraform_aws	100%	100%	✔
frontend	100%	100%	✔
frontend.frontends	100%	100%	✔
frontend.frontends.database_exporters	100%	100%	✔
frontend.frontends.database_exporters.django	100%	100%	✔
frontend.frontends.database_importers	100%	100%	✔
frontend.frontends.database_importers.django	100%	100%	✔
management	100%	100%	✔
management.commands	100%	100%	✔
tests	100%	100%	✔
tests.commands	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django.backend	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django.backend.local	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django.backend.s3	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django.database_exporters	100%	100%	✔
tests.frontend.django.database_importers	100%	100%	✔
utils	100%	100%	✔
Summary	100% (2878 / 2878)	100% (651 / 651)	✔

Minimum allowed line rate is 60%