Re: [BackupPC-users] Automatically stopping running backups during business hours

[Chris R. <cro...@gc...>]

Matthias Meyer wrote:
> Adam Goryachev wrote:
>
>   
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>>
>> Langdon Stevenson wrote:
>>     
>>> I have a number of servers at remote sites that get backed up over ADSL
>>> connections.  Usually the backups run in an hour or two outside of
>>> business hours which is fine.
>>>
>>> However occasionally a user will add a large number of files to a
>>> server, causing the backup to take much longer.  This causes a serious
>>> slow-down of the ADSL connection for staff at the effected site during
>>> the day.
>>>
>>> What I would like is for BackupPC to automatically stop backups at
>>> 7.00am or some other configurable time if they are still running.
>>>
>>> I have read the documentation and can find no way of doing this, only
>>> the ability to stop backups from starting during certain periods.
>>>
>>> Can anyone confirm that BackupPC is unable to do what I need?  If so,
>>> does anyone know of a hack or patch to add this functionality?
>>>       
>> As far as I know there is no solution to this within BackupPC, one
>> thing you can do is use the bwlimit parameter to rsync, and setup QoS
>> on the ADSL to try and keep things reasonable. However, trying to do
>> VoIP can still be a challenge, in which case the only solution is to
>> manually login and stop the backup...
>>
>> I suppose you could have a script which runs at 9am to firewall the
>> relevant ports and hence stop the backup, then at 5pm it unblocks again.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Adam
>>     
>
> As an alternative you can place the following script in /etc/crontab.
> #!/bin/bash
> declare -a hosts
> hosts[0]=server1        # fill in your own host names
> hosts[1]=server2        # whose backup should be canceld
> hosts[2]=server3
> declare -i hostcount=3  # configure your count of killable hosts
>
> ps ax | grep "BackupPC_dump -i" | grep -v grep > /tmp/runnings
> while read pid fl1 fl2 duration perl dump fl3 host rest
> do
>         for (( a=0; a<hostcount; a++ ))
>         do
>                 if [ $host == ${hosts[a]} ]; then kill -9 $pid > /dev/null 2>&1; fi
>   

The kill signal (-9) should only be used as a last resort.

http://sial.org/howto/shell/kill-9/

(That link is down at the moment, so I'll link to the archive as well: 
http://web.archive.org/web/20080208221340/http://sial.org/howto/shell/kill-9/bonk.jpg)

>         done
> done < /tmp/runnings
> exit 0
>
> br
> Matthias
>   

Chris