pimatic-backup

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I’ve created a little plugin for automatic config backup to ftp.

You can set the interval in hours to backup the config. If the config didn’t change, it will not backup until the config changes.

This plugin is based on drivers, so you can set which driver you want to use. For now only FTP is available but there could be drivers for:

Local
Email
SMB
Cloud services (dropbox, google drive)

https://www.npmjs.com/package/pimatic-backup
https://github.com/sweebee/pimatic-backup

For people who use SMB you can create the following rule:
Don’t ask me how this works, I’ve created it ages ago but it works

button-backup is pressed then
execute "smbclient -U USERNAME //SMBSERVER/Share PASSWORD --directory example/pimatic/backup -c 'put /home/pi/pimatic-app/config.json config.json' 2> /dev/null" and execute "smbclient //SMBSERVER/Share -U USERNAME PASSWORD -c 'prompt OFF; recurse ON; cd example/pimatic/backup; lcd /home/pi/pimatic-app/scripts; mput *' 2> /dev/null"

Button:

New version, pimatic won’t crash anymore when the connection is invalid

@sweebee is it also possible to use it for local backup? or maybe by email?

@fabian I published a new version with driver options. For now only FTP is included, but it should be quite easy to add more drivers.

@developer feel free to add more backup options.

Maybe:

Email
SMB
SFTP
Local

@sweebee said in pimatic-backup:

feel free to add more backup options

What we discussed earlier was to use cloud services (like google drive) for backup plus encryption as an option

@mwittig we could implement that as a driver. https://github.com/google/google-api-nodejs-client

I’ll give it a try when I have more time.

Hi @sweebee,

Thanks for this, good initiative !
Sugestion: What about providing a rule action, so users can leverage datetime and cron for more flexibility as to when the backups are scheduled.

Although the plugin currently backs up the config, I am already thinking about the power of the plugin: For plugin scalability, the drivers could become devices holding backup parameters (e.g. combined with a resource file on what to backup read by the device). What do you think?

Pimatic-Telegram already is capable of sending files (documents) to a telegram client, for the config backup this could also work.
Also I still have a solid shell script lying around using rsync for backups on the (local) network.

If time permits I wouldn’t mind migrating the backup script etc to a driver and optionally integrating p-telegram, although I am currently working heavily on the TTS plugin. Please let me know your thoughts.

@dan said in pimatic-backup:

Thanks for this, good initiative !

I like the idea of implementing backup drivers as pimatic devices. As you say, it also provides the opportunity to utilize device types implemented by different plugins. Implementing a backup action provider also allows for handling other sources than pimatic config file if fancied.

I tried setting up a bunch of rules to send a backup on email, but I get an empty file. I suspect my email conf is wrong or the file can’t be found

@sweebee said in pimatic-backup:

@mwittig we could implement that as a driver. https://github.com/google/google-api-nodejs-client

I’ll give it a try when I have more time.

Another option maybe is dropbox ?

@bill-blacksoll said in pimatic-backup:

Another option maybe is dropbox ?

+1
Dropbox should be on the list of supported drivers!
However, I think the driver should be possibly written in Javascript/Coffeescript rather than embedding a bash script, e.g. https://www.npmjs.com/package/dropbox

Maybe it is possible to use some other programs like https://rclone.org/ to connect to different clouds storages. But I really don’t know if this is possible. It is just an idea to make a backup possible to many different services.

Hello, I would like to know how to spell the path in the settings. With “/” at the beginning and with "/"at the end?
Thx for help.

@thrusty
I have almost the same questions, but It seams nobody care. I will try it anyway.

Does somebody have a clou what is the problem here?

error [pimatic-backup]: { [Error: pimaticbackup/12/14/2019, 7:48:04 PM.json: No such file or directory] code: 550 }

pimatic version 0.9.54
Node.js version 4.9.1
npm version 2.15.12

@dnl0319

Quickly scanned the code of pimatic-backup.

      @client.put data, @options.path + slash + name, (err) =>
        if err
          env.logger.error err
        else
          env.logger.debug "Backup created"

Seems the code assumes the target path already exists and is valid.

• What path did you configure for your backups in the plugin?
  • if it is something like pimaticbackup/12/14/2019, 7:48:04 PM thats definately not a valid *nix path
• Did you create the path on the target machine?

Till Dropbox option became available I use the following rule and works great.

Backup_every_sunday
When it is 0:00 and it is sunday then send mail to:"..........@gmail.com" subject:"Pimatic config backup" file:"/home/pi/pimatic-app/config.json" from:".......@gmail.com" text:"Pimatic config backup"

Database backup

When DB Backup is pressed then send mail to:"........@gmail.com" subject:"Pimatic db backup" html:"{date()}" file:"/home/pi/pimatic-app/pimatic-database.sqlite"

@dan said in pimatic-backup:

• if it is something like pimaticbackup/12/14/2019, 7:48:04 PM thats definately not a valid *nix path
  Might actually be localization bug on date/timestamp. Then @sweebee needs to look into this.

@dan said in pimatic-backup:

@dnl0319

Quickly scanned the code of pimatic-backup.

      @client.put data, @options.path + slash + name, (err) =>
        if err
          env.logger.error err
        else
          env.logger.debug "Backup created"

Seems the code assumes the target path already exists and is valid.

• What path did you configure for your backups in the plugin?
  • if it is something like pimaticbackup/12/14/2019, 7:48:04 PM thats definately not a valid *nix path
• Did you create the path on the target machine?

No thats not the path. My path is a folder on my drive and the name is pimaticbackup so my path is “pimaticbackup/”

Yes, I created an extra folder for pimatic backups.

The date and time is from the backup I would say.

I’ve seen on github there was an issue with the timestamp in the coffee.skript. Could this be a reason why the date and time is display in the path?

https://github.com/sweebee/pimatic-backup/issues/1

@bill-blacksoll said in pimatic-backup:

Till Dropbox option became available I use the following rule and works great.

Backup_every_sunday
When it is 0:00 and it is sunday then send mail to:"..........@gmail.com" subject:"Pimatic config backup" file:"/home/pi/pimatic-app/config.json" from:".......@gmail.com" text:"Pimatic config backup"

Database backup

When DB Backup is pressed then send mail to:"........@gmail.com" subject:"Pimatic db backup" html:"{date()}" file:"/home/pi/pimatic-app/pimatic-database.sqlite"

I would like to save it on my NAS. But just in case, how do you do that to save cfg and database on dropbox?

@dnl0319 I’m using dropbox_uploader to save Pimatic backups and stills from my cameras. Its a bash script that via shell-execute can be used in rules in Pimatic. It’s not fancy but it works without problems for 2 years.