Introduction

There is a new king of backups in town, holland. This little framework written in Python allows one to easily backup anything that might need to be converted to a more flat file style before being backed up. Right now there is support for mysql, sqlite, and postgresql but with a little finesse it could potentially support directories as well as databases. This would make not only mysql backups a breeze but LDAP as well.

Progress Update

I have added a preliminary set of ebuilds to my overlay (which could use some code review if anyone is interested) that allows holland to easily be installed on Gentoo systems. So easy in fact that all it takes is `emerge holland`.

It accepts a set of use flags to bring in the “providers” you want to be able to backup for and makes sure that those packages are installed on the system.

Examples

The holland ebuilds have three providers right now:

• mysql
• postgresql
• sqlite

You can install any of these three you want in any combination; it doesn’t care. It will default to installing the mysql but can easily be told not to by placing -mysql in the use flags for holland. Diego Pettenò — Flameeyes mentioned to me that in EAPI 4 we’ll get the cool option of being able to specify one of a set of use flags must be set without forcing the choice but until then we have this slick solution.

There is also lvm support for snapshotting off the database directory before grabbing the database and a myriad of other features I haven’t had a chance to explore yet.

To perform a rudimentary backup after installing holland simply run `holland bk`. This will read the configurations in `/etc/holland` and backup the databases it finds.

Conclusion

The new kid on the block, holland, will make backups of complex databases and directories a breeze. Simply change that cronjob from using mysqldump to calling holland and you’re finished.