Archives: ubuntu

Backup Files from Ubuntu to Azure

Hey there, how are you doing? I have been busy setting up a VPS (not in Azure) with PostgreSQL and wanted to have a recovery mechanism set for it. Because the VPS is not in Azure, I have zero options that would allow me to take a snapshot or backup of the server. So, I decided to write a simple script allowing me to take backups of files and upload them to Azure Blob Storage using Azure CLI. If you want to use something other than Azure, feel free to do so. I use Azure on my account, and the charges are low. You can check the pricing here.

Alright then, let’s start taking a backup of the database using the pgdump command:

#$USERNAME is the admin username that you have set
#$DATABASE_NAME is the Database name
#$BACKUP_FILE is the path where the file will be dumped
pg_dump -U $USERNAME -d $DATABASE_NAME > $BACKUP_FILE

Now that we have a way to export a dump of the database, let’s go ahead and identify the Access Key for the Container where I want to store the files. This can be found in the Access keys within the Security + networking section of the Storage Account. If you want to learn more about Azure Blob Storage, please visit the documentation.

Here, either of the key1 or key2 values can be used.

Next, to use this, we need to install the Azure CLI. Let’s execute this command to install the Azure CLI:

curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash
az --version

A successful installation would result in az --version giving the version info.

Now that the dependencies are sorted out, we can look into the backup script. Note that this script can be modified to back up any files. Save this file as backup_script.sh in /home/vps_backup/scripts directory.

#!/bin/bash

# Set the password for PostgreSQL user
export PGPASSWORD='YOUR_PASSWORD'

# Replace these values with your actual Azure Blob Storage account details
AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT="MYBACKUP"
AZURE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY="STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY"
CONTAINER_NAME="backups"

# Define variables for the backup
USERNAME=postgres
DATABASE_NAME=mydatabse
# Get the current date and time
today=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")
todayDate=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")

# Set the filenames to todays date. 
BACKUP_FILE=/home/vps_backup/backups/backup_$today.sql
BACKUP_ZIPFILE=/home/vps_backup/backups/backup_$today.tar.gz

# Perform the backup using pg_dump
pg_dump -U $USERNAME -d $DATABASE_NAME > $BACKUP_FILE

# Unset the password to clear it from the environment
unset PGPASSWORD

# Generating a compressed file using tar
tar -czvf $BACKUP_ZIPFILE $BACKUP_FILE

# Upload the backup files to Azure Blob Storage using Azure CLI
# using -d for directory using the $todayDate variable to store the files based on dates
az storage blob directory upload --account-name $AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT --account-key $AZURE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY --container $CONTAINER_NAME --source $BACKUP_ZIPFILE -d $todayDate

The final step is to set the cron so that our script gets executed every hour.

crontab -e
0 * * * * /home/vps_backup/scripts/backup_script.sh

Although I have used Azure CLI for Azure, you can use any medium to store your files, such as a database dump from PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQL, MySQL, etc., or any other file.

Here is a snapshot of the Azure Storage Browser showing the Container with a specific date directory:

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Read Gzip Log Files without Extracting

Lately, I have been getting many warnings on my MySQL Server, getting into some crashes and restarting.

I looked at the status of MySQL and found the logs stating,

mysql.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL

To analyse this correctly, I looked at the MySQL logs at /var/log/mysql directory.
However, log rotation was enabled, compressing the previous log files.

To read all of these files means I will have to extract each one and then open them.

But there is a better way, using the command zcat

To use this command, you need to pass on the path of the gzip file as the argument.

zcat /var/log/mysql/error.log.1.gz
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Find 10 Memory Consuming Processes in Ubuntu

Let’s first talk about the reason I started looking for this. I have a couple of services running in Ubuntu including DBs like MySQL, MongoDB, etc. along with running nGinx and other services.

However, sometimes, I noticed that the memory consumption goes upwards and it’s wise to know which process could be responsible for this.

I decided to look into this using the ps command

ps -eo pmem,pcpu,pid,args | tail -n +2 | sort -rnk 1 | head
Output for the above ps command

Let’s look at the arguments provided:

psCurrent process snapshot report
-eSelect all processes. Identical to -A.
-oformat is a single argument in the form of a blank-separated or comma-separated list, which offers a way to specify individual output columns.
pmemthe ratio of the process’s resident set size to the physical memory on the machine, expressed as a percentage.
pcpuCPU utilization of the process in the “##.#” format. Currently, it is the CPU time used divided by the time the process has been running (cputime/real time ratio), expressed as a percentage.
pidA number representing the process ID
argsCommand with all its arguments as a string.
tail -n +2Output lines starting to the second line
sort -rnk 1r (reverse) n(numeric sort) by column 1 i.e., pmem
headOutput the first 10 lines
Based on man ps

Hope it helps!

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Installing Wine 5.0 in Ubuntu

Before we dive into the commands for installing Wine, let’s first talk about what Wine is in General in the Linux World.

As described in Wine’s Site:
Wine (originally an acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”) is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.

In short, it allows you to run Win32.exe Applications built for Windows System on Linux.

Let’s look at the steps required for installing Wine 5.0 on a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system using the apt-get package manager

1. Setup PPA

If this is a 64-bit system , then we need to enable the 32-bit architecture. Once done, then install the key used to sign the wine package

$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 
$ wget -qO - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -

2. Enable the Wine Apt repository

$ sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ bionic main' 
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cybermax-dexter/sdl2-backport

3. Install Wine on Ubuntu

Time to install Wine packages from the apt repository.
The –install-recommends option will install all the recommended packages by winehq stable versions on your Ubuntu system. 

$ sudo apt update 
$ sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

In case the install fails due to some unforeseen circumstances, you can try and install the same using aptitude.

$ sudo apt install aptitude 
$ sudo aptitude install winehq-stable

4. Check Wine version

You can check the wine version installed by running the below command:

$ wine --version 

wine-5.0

Hope this helps.

Happy Coding!

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