Server/horror/Technical documentation

Pagina legata al server ⚙️ horror

This page is the public technical documentation for the server ⚙️ horror, dedicated to off-site backups, useful for a #Disaster recovery.

Authorization

Server administrators must be authorized before being able to do a #Server login in the ⚙️ horror backup server. To be authorized:

You need

1. a good reason

   for example #Add a project under the backup umbrella

   for example #Disaster recovery)

2. Unix-like sysadmin experience

Instructions

Request access policy:

• https://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Infrastruttura

Server login

Access to the backup server is exclusively via SSH login. There are no other forms of access, since SSH is the most secure method possible. To do it:

You need

1. #Authorization
2. SSH experience

Instructions

Just login via SSH using the username we assigned to you in your #Authorization process:

ssh name-surname@horror.wikimedia.it

If it doesn't work, stop immediately and repeat #Authorization.

Do not try random attempts or you can be blocked, notified, fired or even sued.

Filesystem overview

You can explore the filesystem only after #Server login. All recent backups are here:

/var/backups/wmi

Older copies can be obtained adding a numeric suffix. For example the 2-days-old backups are here:

/var/backups/wmi.2

Note that all sub-directories can be accessed only if you are its dedicated user.

For example all of these are owned by the user lessema:

/var/backups/wmi/lessema.wikimedia.it
/var/backups/wmi.1/lessema.wikimedia.it
/var/backups/wmi.2/lessema.wikimedia.it
/var/backups/wmi.3/lessema.wikimedia.it

So to get the most recent backup of your project just do something like this:

rsync lessema@horror.wikimedia.it:/var/backups/wmi/lessema.wikimedia.it ./my-destination/

Or to download the 3-days-old backup do something like this:

rsync lessema@horror.wikimedia.it:/var/backups/wmi.3/lessema.wikimedia.it ./my-destination/

Etc.

Filesystem policies

The filesystem rule is the standard one in Unix-like systems: give as few privileges as possible.

Here is a summary of the main filesystem pathnames:

Path	owner:group	Permissions	Description
/var/backups/wmi*/	root:root	755	Everyone should be allowed to list its sub-directories to list the available latest backups. Note: You may be allowed to list sub-directories but you must be not allowed to access them as default.
/var/backups/wmi*/project	project:project	750	The user project must be the only one allowed to access in its sub-directory.

Note: the location /var/backups/wmi is automatically rotated in /var/backups/wmi.1 etc. and the oldest is automatically deleted. Permissions are just kept.

Add a project under the backup umbrella

You need

1. a good understanding about what data need to be saved
2. a good understanding about how to transfer that data (e.g. rsync + SSH)
3. #Server login

Instructions

In short you just need to create a directory on server ⚙️ horror and a dedicated user able to read/write in that directory. Then, you can push backups on that directory.

Some pseudo-instructions to be executed from server ⚙️ horror to create a new project foo to be added under its backup umbrella:

USERNAME=foo
PROJECT=foo.wikimedia.it

sudo adduser --disabled-password $USERNAME

sudo mkdir --parents           /var/backups/wmi/"$PROJECT"
sudo chown $USERNAME:$USERNAME /var/backups/wmi/"$PROJECT"

The final purpose is to execute this command daily from you server foo to push your backups on server horror:

rsync /my/important/pathname foo@horror.wikimedia.it:/var/backups/wmi/foo.wikimedia.it

You can also execute a daily command from server horror to pull your backups from server foo. It's up to you.

Execution time

The pathname /var/backups/wmi/ must considered as not writable after 5:00 Europe/Rome.

That pathname can be considered as writable again after 12:00 Europe/Rome, after the rotation is concluded.

Available backup tools

• rsync
• rclone
• mysqldump
• https://gitpull.it/source/micro-backup-script/ (just a stupid script that encapsulates those above)
• ...

Disaster recovery

You need

1. a good understanding of what data is to be recovered and from what date
2. check if the provider has native backup/snapshots (if yes, try to use them - they may be more simple to be recovered)
3. check if there are on-site backups (if yes, try to use them - they may be more up to date)
4. #Server login

Instructions

1. please create a public Task in phabricator:tag/wmit-infrastructure/ to describe the incident shortly, and notify Infrastruttura
2. using #Server login, verify the interested backup location and the required privileges

   Example:

   ls -l /var/backups/wmi

3. set a strong password to that user

   Example:

   passwd interested-user

4. from your already-existing device, download the needed data

   Example:

   rsync interested-user@horror.wikimedia.it:/var/backups/wmi/interested-project ./my-destination/

5. when you have concluded, disable the password to that user

   Example:

   passwd --delete interested-user