Holland backup is a way to backup your mysql databases automatically using cronjobs (rather than manually using mysqldump). The following is a guide to install holland backup.

Quick Links:
Installing Holland backup on CentOS
Creating .my.cnf file for holland
Holland backup location
Missing default.conf
Testing Holland backup (manually)

Holland Install CentOS

The following command can  be used to install holland backup:

yum install holland-common holland-mysqldump

.my.cnf

Next you will need to make sure that you a .my.cnf file. You can create this file in the root directory if it does not already exist (e.g. touch .my.cnf). The file should look like:

[client]

user=user

password=yourpasswordhere

Holland Backup Location

The default backup location for holland is /var/spool/holland/ You can edit this by going to the config file /etc/holland/holland.conf and changing the backup_directory. This section should look similar to this:

## Top level directory where backups are held

backup_directory = /var/spool/holland

Holland missing default.conf:

You will then need to check if the following file exists, if it doesn’t then you will need to create it /etc/holland/backupsets/default.conf

A full example (that you can copy and paste) can be found here if it does not exist.

Holland mk-config

You can also generate your own default.conf file depending on what provider you are going to be using (lvm, mysqldump etc).

The command to do this is:

holland mk-config mysqldump > /etc/holland/backupsets/default.conf

By default Holland will only keep 1 backup, you can change this by locating the following configuration line in the default.conf and changing the variable:

backups-to-keep = 1

Testing Holland

After you have configured holland you can test its configuration and perform a manual backup by using the following command:

holland bk

You can then check if the backup was succesful by going to the backup location (/var/spool/holland/default/newest/backup_data/).

Holland has been successfully installed. You can now configure cronjobs to execute these backups in a manner that suits your needs.

Cronjob guide is currently being written and will provide more information once it is complete.