ZRM for MySQL Notes

Preparing the server

yum -y install mysql MySQL-zrm

Make a copy of, and start editing the ZRM config file.

cp /etc/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm.conf{,.original}

Global Params

I edit /etc/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm.conf to change the default backup
destination.

destination=/backups/databases  
encrypt-plugin="/usr/share/mysql-zrm/plugins/encrypt.pl"  
decrypt-option="-d"  
mailto="support@example.com"  
mail-policy=always  
html-report-directory=/var/www/html/reports/  
html-reports=backup-status-info,backup-method-info,backup-performance-info,backup-retention-info

There are plenty of other options
available.

Creating a client backupset

Create a directory with whatever you want to call your backupset:

mkdir /etc/mysql-zrm/backupset-client.example.com

Now create the client config file

vim /etc/mysql-zrm/backupset-client.example.com/mysql-zrm.conf

I’m going to try encrypted backups. You can create a passphrase file
called .passphrase file in the backupset directory or define your own
name for it. I’m trying the latter option.

I added this for basic trial run:

# MySQL connection params  
host=client.example.com  
user=backupser  
password=Pas5a7hasd  
  
# Host connection params and options  
copy-plugin="/usr/share/mysql-zrm/plugins/ssh-copy.pl"  
  
# Backup params  
backup-mode=logical  
compress=1  
encrypt=1  
passfile=/etc/mysql-zrm/backupset-client.example.com/passphrase  
  
# Retention policy  
retention-policy="10D"

Preparing the Client

Backup User

Make sure that your backup user has the appropriate
privileges.
We’ll be using “support”:

GRANT LOCK TABLES, SELECT, RELOAD, SUPER
ON *.* TO 'backupuser'@'backupserver.tld'
IDENTIFIED BY 'pgubSfHpm';

Keyless access

ZRM will use the “mysql” user to connect. Therefore, we need to set up
keyless SSH access. On CentOS, the mysql user’s homedir is /var/lib/mysql. So:

cd /var/lib/mysql  
mkdir .ssh  
chmod 700 .ssh  
chown mysql:mysql .ssh  
cd .ssh  
touch authorized_keys  
chmod 600 authorized_keys  
chown mysql:mysql authorized_keys  
echo "ssh-rsa {your public key} root@server.example.com" >> authorized_keys

Now place the key of the backup server in the authorized keys file and
test a connection:

ssh mysql@client.example.com

If you log in, you’re good to go! You can alternately create another
user if you don’t want to muck with the MySQL user.

Testing

With the server and client configured, try this on the server.

mysql-zrm-scheduler --now --backup-set backupset-client.example.com --backup-level 0

If all goes well, you should see a timestamped backup folder in the
backup destination (/backups/databases in our case) with a compressed
file called backup-data

Extracting the compressed backup

Don’t use gzip! Rather:

mysql-zrm --action extract-backup --source-directory /backups/databases/backupset-client.example.com/20061012232713

If your backup is encrypted, decrypt it first:

gpg --decrypt --output test.gz /backups/databases/backupset-client.example.com/20061012232713/backup-data

It’s always advisable to use the ZRM restore feature first.

Generating reports

mysql-zrm-reporter  
  
# To see a particular backup set  
mysql-zrm-reporter --where backup-set=backupset-client.example.com  
  
# Generate HTML reports (output is in backup destination dir)  
mysql-zrm-reporter --destination /backups/databases --type html --output report.html

There are a a lot of other options
available. I
wanted global reports and set this in my crontab:

30 4 * * *  cd /var/www/html/zrm && /usr/bin/mysql-zrm-reporter --destination /backups/databases/ --type html --output index.html --show backup-status-info,backup-method-info,backup-performance-info,backup-retention-info  >> /dev/null 2>&1

Validation

mysql-zrm --action verify-backup --backup-set backupset-client.example.com

Scheduling

# Schedule daily at 1:30PM  
mysql-zrm-scheduler --add --interval daily --start 13:30 --backup-set backupset-client.example.com  
  
# View all scheduled jobs  
mysql-zrm-scheduler --query  
  
# Remove the scheduled job  
mysql-zrm-scheduler --delete -interval daily --start 13:30 --backup-set backupset-client.example.com

This is added to crontab.

Rotating Backups

Set the retention policy for a given backup set and run this against
your backup destination:

mysql-zrm --action purge --destination /backups/databases/

See your crontab. All purge jobs run at 4:00AM (granularity is one day.)

Plugins

These are installed in /usr/share/mysql-zrm/plugins. Some good stuff!

Errors and Miscellaneous

Ubuntu

The MySQL user’s homedir on Ubuntu is /nonexistent. While this makes
sense, you may want to change this for keyless access.

mysql-bin.00000x: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Make sure that this is uncommented in your global or client configs:

mysql-binlog-path="/var/log/mysql"

Make sure that the log-bin directive in your client config is set.

ERROR 1381 (HY000) at line 1: You are not using binary logging

Edit my.cnf to add this line:

log-bin=/var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log

Make sure that the folder exists and has the right permissions:

mkdir /var/log/mysql  
chown mysql:mysql /var/log/mysql  
service mysqld restart

Lost connection to MySQL server at ‘reading initial communication packet’, system error: 111

This is because:

Sources