HOWTO backup mediawiki for easy restore on debian wheezy/squeeze

Creating a useful backup for a a web app like MediaWIki is somewhat more complicated process than backing up somebody's home directory.

While there is no warranty, I have tested this script on the Debian GNU/LINUX Wheezy release. Tonight I used it for reals to move a MedaiWiki on dead Wheezy server to a living Squeeze server.

Assuming you have a working, somewhat standard MediaWiki setup on Debian Wheezy (and probably squeeze), the script below creates a complete tarball backup of your Debian Wheezy MediaWiki install, including:

1. Database 
2. MediaWiki configuration
3. PHP configuration
4. Apache configuraiton
5. README.restore , containing complete instructions on restoring your MediaWiki

By default, the script deletes backups older than 90 days, Edit the script and change the variable: delete_after_days if you don't like this. 

  To install / test install:

1. copy the script below to /etc/cron.daily/backup_media
2. edit the script to change the config variables (probably just mysqlopt to set mysql root password)
3. make the script executable
4. make the script readable only by root
5. run the script.
6. untar the tarball in /var/backups/mediawiki/
7. examine the tarball contents, in particular README.restore

#!/bin/sh

# based on http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Megam0rf/WikiBackup

########### start configuration variables#########

# You need to change this:
mysqlopt="--user=root --password=your-mysql-db-root-password"     #  user/password to run mysql dump as

# you might want to change this:
delete_after_days=90                                              # how long to keep the backups

# you probably don't need to change these:
now=`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M-%a`                                     # used to give you timestamped backup files, 
backupdir=/var/backups/mediawiki                                  # the directory to write the backup tar file to
dump_dir="$backupdir/mediawiki_backup.d/"                         # directory to hold backed up files
db_dumpfile="$dump_dir/mediawiki-restore.sql"                     # database dump to this file
tarfile="$backupdir/mediawiki-backup-$now.tgz";

########### no more configuration variables below #########

mkdir -p $dump_dir || exit $?

# dump the database
mysqldump  $mysqlopt wikidb  | gzip > "$db_dumpfile.gz" || exit $?

cp -ar /etc/mediawiki $dump_dir/etc-mediawiki                       || exit $? 
cp -ar /var/www/mediawiki_images $dump_dir/var-www-mediawiki_images || exit $?
cp -ar /etc/cron.daily/backup_mediawiki $dump_dir/                  || exit $?


cat << 'EOF' > "$dump_dir/mediawiki-setup.sql"

 -- #################         start HEREDOC for mediawiki-setup.sql" #################

START TRANSACTION;
  CREATE DATABASE wikidb;
  USE wikidb;
  CREATE USER 'wiki'@'localhost';
  GRANT DELETE ON wikidb.* TO wiki;
  GRANT SELECT ON wikidb.* TO wiki;
  GRANT UPDATE ON wikidb.* TO wiki;
  GRANT INSERT ON wikidb.* TO wiki;


  -- CHANGE mysql 'password'  (below) to password you configured 
  --  Mediawiki to connect to database with see: 
  --      grep wgDBpassword  etc-mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

  SET PASSWORD FOR  wiki  = password('password');
COMMIT;

  -- #################         end HEREDOC for mediawiki-setup.sql"  ################# 

EOF
 
cat << 'EOF' > "$dump_dir/README.restore"

#################         start HEREDOC for README.restore  #################

# To restore on Debian wheezy  run commands below

# Assumptions are that you:
 #   use mysql / apache 
 #   will handle Dns on your own.
 #   know what the root mysql password  is on your system

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql mysql-server mediawiki mediawiki-extensions-base  mediawiki-math
sudo apt-get install mediawiki-extensions-confirmedit mediawiki-extensions-openid 

 # follow comment about changing password
 # re-discover password configured mediawiki to connect to mysql with
 
       grep wgDBpassword  etc-mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

 # change script to use that password for the mysql user 'wiki'
 sudo $EDITOR mediawiki-setup.sql

 # unzip the database backup
 gunzip mediawiki-restore.sql.gz

# create the  dataase and database user
 mysql -u root --password=the-password-for-wikiuser       < mediawiki-setup.sql

 # restore the database
 mysql -u root --password=your-mysql-root-password  wikidb < mediawiki-restore.sql

 # copy the files
 sudo mv /etc/mediawiki            /etc/mediawiki.original
 sudo mv etc-mediawiki             /etc/mediawiki
 sudo mv var-www-mediawiki_images  /var/www/mediawiki_images
 sudo mv backup_mediawiki          /etc/cron.daily/

 # replace the default apache conf file  for mediawiki with yours
 sudo rm /etc/apache2/conf.d/mediawiki.conf
 sudo ln -s /etc/mediawiki/apache.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/wiki.conf


 # set the mysql root password  and other parameters you care to change
 sudo $EDITOR /etc/cro.daily/backup_mediawiki

 #################         Stop HEREDOC for README.restore  #################

EOF

cd $backupdir
tar -zcf $tarfile mediawiki_backup.d/ || exit $?
rm  -rf mediawiki_backup.d/ || exit $?

/usr/bin/find $backupdir   -type f -mtime +$delete_after_days -exec rm {} \;

############   END  of  backup script ###############