Performing backups over an ssh connection

Cameron Kerr

29 January 2002

Abstract:

In Unix History, backups that have been made over a network have been done using the Berkeley r-commands. Nowadays, these commands are insecure, and should not be used, not just because of the data security, but because using the r-commands opens up the server host far more than is comfortable.

Here, I outline an approach that can be used to send your backups over the network, using the popular SSH 2 protocol (OpenSSH in particular). I show how to set up keys for automated login, and restrict access, and how we can use the forced command feature of SSH 2 to manage our backups.