Title: Automated-Backup-Script

1. Project Overview

The Automated-Backup-Script is a Bash-based solution that performs automated server backup.

The script:

• Backs up a specified directory
• Adds timestamps to the backup files
• Compresses the backup files
• Stores the backup files in designated loaction

2. Problem Statement

Business continuity Plan is essential for every organization. Backing up files and data is one of the essential aspects of Business Continuity Plan. Failure to implement automated backups may results in:

• Loss of revenues during disasters
• Permanent loss of company and customers data
• Reputation damage

3. Solution Approach

This script automates regular backups using standard Linux utilities:

• mkdir to create new directory
• tar -czf to create and compress archive file
• if statement to trigger alerts
• date to generate timestamp

4. Script Breakdown

#!/bin/bash <--- # This tells the Linux kernel to use Bash intepreter to execute the script.

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin <---- This is an environment variable assignment that tells Bash where to look for executable commands.

A. Create directories using variable

# Directories 
SOURCE_DIR="/home/olamide/bash-project"
BACKUP_DIR="/home/olamide/backups"

Used variables to represent my directories. This makes modifying paths easy.

B. Create Timestamp variable

DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S) 

This generates a timestamp in the format: YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS to make sure each backup file is unique.

C. Create directory and backup files.

mkdir -p $BACKUP_DIR

echo "Starting backup of $SOURCE_DIR ..."

tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/backup_$DATE.tar.gz" "$SOURCE_DIR"

• mkdir -p $BACKUP_DIR creates the backup directory incase it does not already exist.

• tar -czf

  • -c --> Create archives
  • -z --> Compress with gzip
  • -f --> Specify filename

/backup_$DATE.tar.gz helps to create a backup file with a timestamp on it using the $DATE variable.

The resulting file format:

backup_2026-02-20-10-49-04.tar.gz

D. Exit Status Check

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "SUCCESS: Backup created at $BACKUP_DIR/backup_$DATE.tar.gz"
else 
        echo "ERROR: Backup failed!"
fi

• $? is a special variable that stores the exit status of the last command in the script.

  • 0 = success
  • Non-zero= failure This ensures feedback.

• The if statement helps check the exit status, then print the corresponding output to the screen.

5. How to Run

• Grant the script executable permission --> chmod +x backup_script.sh
• Run the script --> ./backup-script.sh

6. Automation with Cron

Running backup manually is burdensome and error prone, so we automate this process by making use of the crontab.

15 13 * * * /home/olamide/bash-project/backup_script.sh >> /home/olamide/bash-project/backup.log 2>&1

The cron tasks backs up the server every 1:15pm everyday. It then append either the success or failure output to a log file.

7. Future Improvements

• Add more paths for the script to backup.
• Send alerts whenever a backup is not successful
• Add retention policy