This is a plain and simple way to manage old mysql EBS snapshots. Maintain the latest five recent snapshots of a specific volume. You don’t want to mess with other existing volume snapshots, right?

1. Install Eric Hammond’s ec2-consistent snapshot

codename=$(lsb_release -cs)
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/alestic/ppa/ubuntu $codename main" |
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/alestic-ppa.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys BE09C571
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ec2-consistent-snapshot
sudo PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 cpan Net::Amazon::EC2

2. Copy the lines below to a file $HOME/.my.cnf, (make sure to change file permission to read only using chmod 600)

   [client]
   user=root
   password=MYPASSWORD

3. Just copy your AWS access and secret key to $HOME/.awssecret separated by a linefeed.(make sure to change file permission to read only using chmod 600)

  aws_accesskey
  aws_secretkey

4. Download Tim Kay’s AWS tool and make the file executable.

    sudo wget https://github.com/timkay/aws/raw/master/aws -O   /usr/local/sbin/aws
    sudo chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/aws
 

Updated 12/13-2010: URL for Tim Kay’s aws program.

5. Setup a cronjob. Adjust cronjob to your backup schedules. If you want to maintain 10 snapshots, replace the 5 at sed command. The one-liner code was posted here.

# to snapshot your mysql
0 0 * * * /usr/bin/ec2-consistent-snapshot --mysql --xfs-filesystem /vol vol-XXXXXX >> /mnt/backup.log  2>&1
# Delete the last 5 old snapshots.
0 2 * * * /usr/local/sbin/aws dsnap | grep vol-XXXXXXX | sort -r -k 5  | sed 1,5d | awk '{print "Deleting snapshot: " $2 " Dated:" $8}; system("/usr/local/sbin/aws delsnap " $2 )'  >>  /mnt/backup.log  2>&1

Code Updated fixing redirection.

I’m using Eric Hammond’s Ubuntu Jaunty: ami-ed46a784 for this setup. Note that this ami-ed46a784 is using an older kernel with bug that pose possible access to root account in a multiuser environment.

New Releases of Ubuntu Images for Amazon EC2 (Kernels, Security, Tools, PPA, runurl)
New 2.6.21 kernel+modules: XFS breaks on Ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid

Amazon AWS posted on their website that it is now possible to share EBS snapshot to multiple accounts.

“Amazon EBS shared snapshots make it easy for you to share this data with your co-workers or others in the AWS community. With this feature, users that you have authorized can quickly use your Amazon EBS shared snapshots as the basis for creating their own Amazon EBS volumes. If you choose, you can also make your data available publicly to all AWS users. Because all the data is stored in the AWS cloud, users don’t have to wait for time consuming downloads, and can access it within minutes. You can quickly start sharing your data through the AWS Management Console by visiting the Snapshots section in the Amazon EC2 tab, or by leveraging the API Tools.

Please visit our Amazon EBS detail page for additional information on Amazon EBS shared snapshots and Amazon EBS and see our developer documentation for more information on the new API calls.”

Click here for more info.