104 lines
4.2 KiB
Org Mode
104 lines
4.2 KiB
Org Mode
#+TITLE: Mastodon Backup
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#+DATE: 2023-07-26
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* Prologue
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People on the Fediverse like to point out how you have to backup your
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data regularly in case of a catastrophic failure effecting your
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instance, the host of your instance, the data centre of your instance
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or maybe your admin. Heck, even a catastrophic failure effecting an
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admin of /another/ instance might make you wish you had a backup of
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your follows list[fn::If a remote admin decides to de-federate your
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instance it will sever all your connections with people on that
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instance.].
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Remembering to make a backup manually is already difficult
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enough[fn::My last manual backup was over a year old.], but then you
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also need to remember *how* to make that backup...
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* Manual Backups
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Got to "App Settings". You do not know where "App Settings" are? I
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know the feeling... They are behind the three cogs on the top
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left. Navigate to "Import and export". Click "Data export". Click the
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"CSV" link. Click the other "CSV" link. Click the other other "CSV"
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link. You have now downloaded your "follows", "muted" and "blocked"
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accounts lists.
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* Automatic Backups
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I have recently discovered [[https://toot.bezdomni.net/introduction.html][toot - Mastodon CLI client]] which can output
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a list of your follows and people following you. I have [[https://github.com/ihabunek/toot/pull/390][contributed
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code for "muted" and "blocked" commands]] which got accepted and
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released in version 0.38.
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We first need to authenticate to our instance by running ~toot
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login~. This is only needed once. For more information [[https://toot.bezdomni.net/usage.html][see the
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official documentation]].
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I am running the following script from cron once a day:
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#+begin_src shell
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#! /bin/ksh
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ACCOUNT=florian
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INSTANCE=bsd.network
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BACKUPDIR=/home/mastodonbackup/backup
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set -e
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set -o pipefail
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exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr() {
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(
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set -o pipefail
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{ "$@" 1>&3 ;} 2>&1 | {
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if IFS= read -r line; then
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printf "%s\n" "$line"
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cat
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exit 1
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fi
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} >&2
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) 3>&1
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}
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exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr /usr/local/bin/toot muted | \
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awk '$2 !~ /^@.*@/ {print $2 "@'${INSTANCE}'"; next} {print $2}' \
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> ${BACKUPDIR}/muted.new
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mv ${BACKUPDIR}/muted{.new,}
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exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr /usr/local/bin/toot blocked | \
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awk '$2 !~ /^@.*@/ {print $2 "@'${INSTANCE}'"; next} {print $2}' \
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> ${BACKUPDIR}/blocked.new
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mv ${BACKUPDIR}/blocked{.new,}
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exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr /usr/local/bin/toot following ${ACCOUNT} | \
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awk '$2 !~ /^@.*@/ {print $2 "@'${INSTANCE}'"; next} {print $2}' \
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> ${BACKUPDIR}/following.new
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mv ${BACKUPDIR}/following{.new,}
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exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr /usr/local/bin/toot followers ${ACCOUNT} | \
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awk '$2 !~ /^@.*@/ {print $2 "@'${INSTANCE}'"; next} {print $2}' \
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> ${BACKUPDIR}/followers.new
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mv ${BACKUPDIR}/followers{.new,}
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#+end_src
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~toot~ outputs accounts from the local instance without
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/@instance/. ~awk(1)~ checks for the existence of two /@/ characters
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and if they are not present outputs /@instance@/ after the account
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name.
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Unfortunately ~toot~ always exits with 0, even if there is an error so
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we need to check if there is some output on =stderr= so that we do not
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replace our backup with empty files. For that I copy-pasted
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=exit_if_nonzero_or_stderr= from [[https://stackoverflow.com/a/61468182][stackoverflow]] like a pro.
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My crontab entry looks like this:
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#+begin_src crontab
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~ 9 * * * -sn su -s /bin/sh mastodonbackup -c /home/mastodonbackup/backup.sh
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#+end_src
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=-sn= ensures that the script is only run once and that no mail is
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sent after a successful run. See [[https://man.openbsd.org/crontab.5][crontab(5)]] for details.
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* Epilogue
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I have automated backing up the most important lists from my mastodon
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account. My mastodon account is running on somebody else's
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computer. The backup data is written as text files on a system that I
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control. That system is hooked up to my standard backup solution to
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have daily, multiple-redundant backups.
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I expire my toots after 90 days using [[https://ephemetoot.hugh.run/][ephemetoot]]. I have configured it
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to save the toots and media before deleting them from my account.
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