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diff --git a/content/blog/2023-06-28-backblaze-b2.org b/content/blog/2023-06-28-backblaze-b2.org deleted file mode 100644 index d51fd56..0000000 --- a/content/blog/2023-06-28-backblaze-b2.org +++ /dev/null @@ -1,176 +0,0 @@ -#+title: Getting Started with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage -#+date: 2023-06-28 -#+description: An introduction to the free ttier of Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. -#+filetags: :sysadmin: - -* Overview -Backblaze [[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html][B2 Cloud -Storage]] is an inexpensive and reliable on-demand cloud storage and -backup solution. - -The service starts at $5/TB/month ($0.005/GB/month) with a download rate -of $0.01/GB/month. - -However, there are free tiers: - -- The first 10 GB of storage is free. -- The first 1 GB of data downloaded each day is free. -- Class A transactions are free. -- The first 2500 Class B transactions each day are free. -- The first 2500 Class C transactions each day are free. - -You can see which API calls fall into categories A, B, or C here: -[[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/b2-transactions-price.html][Pricing -Organized by API Calls]]. - -For someone like me, who wants an offsite backup of their server's -=/home/= directory and various other server configs that fall under 10 -GB total, Backblaze is a great solution from a financial perspective. - -* Create An Account -To start with Backblaze, you'll need to -[[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/sign-up.html][create a free account]] - -no payment method is required to sign up. - -Once you have an account, you can test out the service with their web -GUI, their mobile app, or their CLI tool. I'm going to use the CLI tool -below to test a file upload and then sync an entire directory to my -Backblaze bucket. - -* Create a Bucket -Before you can start uploading, you need to create a bucket. If you're -familiar with other object storage services, this will feel familiar. If -not, it's pretty simple to create one. - -As their webpage says: - -#+begin_quote -A bucket is a container that holds files that are uploaded into B2 Cloud -Storage. The bucket name must be globally unique and must have a minimum -of 6 characters. A limit of 100 buckets may be created per account. An -unlimited number of files may be uploaded into a bucket. - -#+end_quote - -Once you click the =Create a Bucket= button on their webpage or mobile -app, you need to provide the following: - -- Bucket Unique Name -- Files in Bucket are: =Private= or =Public= -- Default Encryption: =Disable= or =Enable= -- Object Lock: =Disable= or =Enable= - -For my bucket, I created a private bucket with encryption enabled and -object lock disabled. - -Once your bucket is created, you can test the upload/download feature on -their web GUI or mobile app! At this point, you have a fully functional -bucket and account. - -* Linux CLI Tool -** Installation -To install the =b2= CLI tool, you'll need to download it from the -[[https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-command-line-tools][CLI -Tools]] page. I recommend copying the URL from the link that says -=Linux= and using wget to download it, as shown below. - -Once downloaded, make the file executable and move it to a location on -your =$PATH=, so that you can execute that command from anywhere on the -machine. - -#+begin_src sh -wget <b2_cli_url> -chmod +x b2_linux -mv b2_linux /usr/bin/b2 -#+end_src - -** Log In -The first step after installation is to log in. To do this, execute the -following command and provide your =<applicationKeyId>= and -=<applicationKey>=. - -If you don't want to provide these values in the command itself, you can -simply execute the base command and it will request them in an -interactive prompt. - -#+begin_src sh -# if you want to provide the keys directly: -b2 authorize-account [<applicationKeyId>] [<applicationKey>] - -# or, if you don't want your keys in your shell history: -b2 authorize-account -#+end_src - -** Upload a Test File -In order to test the functionality of the CLI tool, I'll start by -uploading a single test file to the bucket I created above. We can do -this with the =upload_file= function. - -The command is issued as follows: - -#+begin_src sh -b2 upload_file <bucket_name> <local_file> <remote_file> -#+end_src - -In my situation, I executed the following command with my username. - -#+begin_src sh -b2 upload_file my_unique_bucket /home/<user>/test.md test.md -#+end_src - -To confirm that the file was uploaded successfully, list the files in -your bucket: - -#+begin_src sh -b2 ls <bucket_name> -#+end_src - -#+begin_src txt -test.md -#+end_src - -** Sync a Directory -If you have numerous files, you can use the =sync= function to perform -functionality similar to =rsync=, where you can check what's in your -bucket and sync anything that is new or modified. - -The command is issued as follows: - -#+begin_src sh -b2 sync <source file location> <B2 bucket destination> -#+end_src - -In my case, I can sync my user's entire home directory to my bucket -without specifying any of the files directly: - -#+begin_src sh -b2 sync /home/<user>/ "b2://<bucketName>/home/<user>" -#+end_src - -* Caveats -** Timing of Updates to the Web GUI -When performing actions over a bucket, there is a slight delay in the -web GUI when inspecting a bucket or its file. Note that simple actions -such as uploading or deleting files may have a delay of a few minutes up -to 24 hours. In my experience (<10 GB and ~20,000 files), any actions -took only a few minutes to update across clients. - -** Symlinks -Note that symlinks are resolved by b2, so if you have a link from -=/home/<user>/nas-storage= that symlinks out to a =/mnt/nas-storage= -folder that has 10TB of data, =b2= will resolve that link and start -uploading all 10TB of data linked within the folder. - -If you're not sure if you have any symlinks, a symlink will look like -this (note the =->= symbol): - -#+begin_src sh -> ls -lha -lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Jun 28 13:32 nas -> /mnt/nas-storage/ -#+end_src - -You can recursively find symlink in a path with the following command: - -#+begin_src sh -ls -lR /path/to/search | grep '^l' -#+end_src |