Automated Backup of Proof-of-Stake Wallets

Backup your wallet files automatically on linux-based systems.

Many bitcoin clones have a different coin mining algorithm based off peercoin called proof-of-stake. You can mine these types of coins on any fairly low power system, as opposed to needing dedicated hardware / asics like with many proof-of-work systems.

The wallet.dat file (essentially the wallet file containing your coins) is updated often during the coin staking process, and as a safety precaution should be backed up on a regular basis to avoid loss of funds.

Here are some simple scripts to backup your wallet.dat file in an automated fashion on linux-based systems, using crontab, so you minimize the risk of loss if you have a major system failure...

Copy the wallet.dat files to a backup archive directory (copy-to-backup.sh):

#!/bin/sh

# 2016-06-09 / Created by dragonfrugal.com
# License: GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)

### SETTINGS ###
USERNAME="LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE"
SCRIPTBACKUPTIME="19:45"
################

NOW=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H%Mhrs")
HOURMINUTE=$(date +"%H%M")

HOST="$(hostname)"

mkdir -p /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump/Wallets/Wallets-$NOW

# Crypto wallets (uncomment below to use, or create another similar entry for a different coin)

#cp /home/$USERNAME/.Hyper/wallet.dat /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump/Wallets/Wallets-$NOW/Hyper-wallet-$NOW.dat

#cp /home/$USERNAME/.HyperStake/wallet.dat /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump/Wallets/Wallets-$NOW/HyperStake-wallet-$NOW.dat

#cp /home/$USERNAME/.reddcoin/wallet.dat /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump/Wallets/Wallets-$NOW/Reddcoin-wallet-$NOW.dat


# Backup entire scripts directory ONCE PER DAY AT $SCRIPTBACKUPTIME 24 HOUR TIME (SET CRON JOB TO INCLUDE THIS TIME)
if [ $HOURMINUTE -eq $SCRIPTBACKUPTIME ]; then
cp -avr /home/$USERNAME/Scripts /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump/Scripts/Scripts-$NOW
fi

Archive the files into tar.gz archive files for a cleaner structure (archive-backup.sh):

#!/bin/sh
# Filesystem backup script
#
# Version: 1.1.1
# Author: Reto Hugi (http://hugi.to/blog/)
# License: GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
#
# This script is based on work and ideas from http://bash.cyberciti.biz/
#
# Dependencies:
# tar
#
# Changelog:
# 2016-06-09 / Modified by dragonfrugal.com
# 2011-08-05 / Version 1.1.1 / fixed comparison syntax
# 2011-03-07 / Version 1.1 / introduced numbering of latest incremental
# 2011-03-06 / Version 1.0 / initial release


### SETTINGS ###
USERNAME="LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE"
################

NOW=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H%Mhrs")
DAY=$(date +"%u")
DAY2=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")
HOST="$(hostname)"

BACKUPDIR="/home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Archived"
INCFILE=$BACKUPDIR/$HOST-tar-inc-backup.dat
# all paths for the DIRS variable must be relative to the root (don't start with /)
DIRS="/home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST/Dump"
# Directory, where a copy of the "latest" dumps will be stored
LATEST=$BACKUPDIR/latest

# Day of Week (1-7) where 1 is monday
FULLBACKUP="2"

# If cleanup is set to "1", backups older than $OLDERTHAN days will be deleted!
CLEANUP=1
OLDERTHAN=14


### Libraries ###
TAR=$(which tar)
if [ -z "$TAR" ]; then
    echo "Error: tar not found"
    exit 1
fi
CP="$(which cp)"
if [ -z "$CP" ]; then
    echo "Error: CP not found"
    exit 1
fi

### Start Backup for file system ###
[ ! -d $BACKUPDIR ] && mkdir -p $BACKUPDIR || :
[ ! -d $LATEST ] && mkdir -p $LATEST || :

if [ $DAY -eq $FULLBACKUP ]; then
  FILE="$HOST-full_$DAY2.tar.gz"
  $TAR -zcPf $BACKUPDIR/$FILE -C / $DIRS
  $CP $BACKUPDIR/$FILE "$LATEST/$HOST-full_latest_$DAY2.tar.gz"
fi

FILE="$HOST-incremental_$NOW.tar.gz"
$TAR -g $INCFILE -zcPf $BACKUPDIR/$FILE -C / $DIRS
$CP $BACKUPDIR/$FILE "$LATEST/$HOST-incremental_latest_$DAY2.tar.gz"


### Find out if ftp backup failed or not ###
# Remove files older than x days if cleanup is activated
if [ $CLEANUP == 1 ]; then
    find $BACKUPDIR/ -name "*.gz" -type f -mtime +$OLDERTHAN -delete
fi

FTP the files to your remote backup location, in case you have a hard drive failure (ftp-backup.sh, needs mail / ncftp to work):

#!/bin/sh
# FTP updload script
#
# Version: 1.0
# Author: Reto Hugi (http://hugi.to/blog/)
# License: GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
#
# This script is based on work and ideas from http://bash.cyberciti.biz/
#
# Dependencies:
# mail, ncftp
#
# Changelog:
# 2016-06-09 / Modified by dragonfrugal.com
# 2011-03-07 / Version 0.2 / changed mput to put and delete uploaded files
# 2011-03-06 / Version 0.1 / initial release


### SETTINGS ####
EMAILID="youremail@youremailhost.com"
USERNAME="LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE"
### FTP Setup ###
FTPU="FTP-USERNAME-HERE"
FTPP="FTP-PASSWORD-HERE"
FTPS="FTP-IP-ADDRESS-HERE"
FTPR="ROOT-SUBDIRECTORY-HERE-OR-MAKE-BLANK"
#################




NOW=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H%Mhrs")
DAY=$(date +"%u")
HOST="$(hostname)"

### Dump backup using FTP ###
#Start FTP backup using ncftp
# Delete files we are replacing
/usr/bin/ncftpget -c -DD -u"$FTPU" -p"$FTPP" $FTPS /$FTPR/Backups/$HOST/Archived/$HOST-tar-inc-backup.dat
/usr/bin/ncftpget -c -DD -u"$FTPU" -p"$FTPP" $FTPS /$FTPR/Backups/$HOST/Archived/latest/$HOST-incremental_latest_$DAY.tar.gz

# Store the backup directory structure
/usr/bin/ncftpput -R -u"$FTPU" -p"$FTPP" $FTPS /$FTPR/Backups /home/$USERNAME/Backups/$HOST

### Notify if ftp backup failed ###
if [ "$?" != "0" ]; then
    T=backup.fail
    echo "Date: $(date)">$T
    echo "Hostname: $HOST" >>$T
    echo "Backup failed" >>$T
    echo "." >>$T
    echo "" >>$T
    /usr/sbin/sendmail  "BACKUP FAILED" "$EMAILID" <$T
    rm -f $T
fi

Completely refresh the files at your FTP remote backup location once in awhile, to purge old backups (ftp-delete.sh):

### SETTINGS ####
### FTP Setup ###
FTPU="FTP-USERNAME-HERE"
FTPP="FTP-PASSWORD-HERE"
FTPS="FTP-IP-ADDRESS-HERE"
FTPR="ROOT-SUBDIRECTORY-HERE-OR-MAKE-BLANK"
#################

HOST="$(hostname)"

# Delete all remote FTP file backups every X days

ncftp -u"$FTPU" -p"$FTPP" $FTPS<<EOF
 cd /$FTPR/Backups/$HOST/
 rm -rf *
 quit
 EOF

Create a directory to save these files in on your system (your user home directory is ~/), and enter it:

cd ~/
mkdir Scripts
cd Scripts

Create the .sh files, and make them executable:

nano filename.sh
chmod 755 filename.sh

Setup your cron jobs (use the "crontab -e" command in a linux terminal window to bring it up, replace the host / user names with your own):

# Your scripts
5,25,45 * * * * /bin/sh /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Scripts/copy-to-backup.sh

55 * * * *      /bin/sh /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Scripts/archive-backup.sh

0 * * * *       /bin/sh /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Scripts/ftp-backup.sh

#Delete LOCAL backup DUMPED SCRIPTS directories older than 4 days
@hourly find /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Backups/YOUR-LOCAL-HOSTNAME-HERE/Dump/Scripts -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime +4 -exec rm -rf {} \;      

#Purge REMOTE backups 3x per week
0 3 * * 1,3,5 /bin/sh /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Scripts/ftp-delete.sh  

#Delete LOCAL backup DUMPED WALLETS directories older than 4 days
@hourly find /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Backups/YOUR-LOCAL-HOSTNAME-HERE/Dump/Wallets -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime +4 -exec rm -rf {} \;       

#Delete LOCAL backup ARCHIVES older than 4 days
@hourly find /home/YOUR-LOCAL-SYSTEM-USERNAME-HERE/Backups/YOUR-LOCAL-HOSTNAME-HERE/Archived* -mtime +4 -exec rm -rf {} \;    

You should now have automated backups of you wallet.dat files every hour to your remote FTP account. :-)

Original post I wrote on my blog is here: https://dragonfrugal.com/automated-backup-proof-stake-wallets/