backup-strategy_skill

Overview

This skill automates a reliable backup strategy for VPS servers using scheduled snapshots, off-server storage, encryption, and retention policies. It provides scripts and procedures to create, verify, transfer, and restore backups so you can recover quickly from failures or compromises. The focus is on practical, repeatable steps that work with standard tooling (tar, rsync, mysqldump, pg_dump, AWS CLI, SCP, GPG).

How this skill works

The skill offers shell scripts and cron schedules to create compressed archives or incremental snapshots of critical directories, perform database dumps, encrypt results, and transfer backups off the VPS (S3 or remote host). It enforces retention using age-based pruning, verifies archive integrity, and supports alerting when backups are missing or fail. Restoration procedures and verification commands are included so restores can be executed and tested reliably.

When to use it

• Setting up backups for a new VPS
• Implementing a disaster recovery plan or business continuity process
• Protecting data against ransomware or accidental deletion
• Meeting data retention or compliance requirements
• Ensuring quick rebuilds after a compromise

Best practices

• Always send backups off-server (S3, remote host, NAS). Do not store primary backups on the same machine.
• Encrypt backups containing sensitive data and keep separate decryption keys.
• Keep a retention policy balanced between storage cost and recovery point needs (e.g., daily x30, weekly x12).
• Schedule verification runs and periodic test restores, not just backups.
• Restrict backup file permissions and avoid storing credentials on the backed-up server.

Example use cases

• Daily tar-based full backups of /etc, /home, /var/www with 30-day retention and S3 upload.
• Nightly MySQL or PostgreSQL dumps compressed and rotated weekly, then copied to remote backup host via SCP.
• Incremental rsync snapshots with hard-linking to save space and keep last 10 snapshots.
• GPG-encrypted backups for off-site storage when transporting via S3 or external provider.
• Cron job that emails admin on failure and a monitor that alerts if last backup is older than threshold.