🚀Automated Backup & Restore to AWS S3 using AWS CLI & Cron Jobs

📌 Introduction

Data loss can be costly whether due to accidental deletion, hardware failure, or system crashes . In this blog, we will set up an automated backup and restore system using AWS S3, AWS CLI, and cron jobs, starting completely from scratch.

You will learn:

• How to configure AWS CLI for S3

• How to create a shell script for backup & restore

• How to automate backups using cron

• How to verify backups in real-world scenarios

🗂 Agenda

🛠 Prerequisites
📥 Install AWS CLI
👤 Create IAM User & Configure CLI
📦 Create S3 Bucket
📂 Prepare Local Folder
🖥 Create Backup & Restore Script
🔄 Backup & Restore (Manual)
⏱ Automate with Cron
🧪 Case Studies (Existing Data + New File)
🏁 Conclusion

🛠 Step 1 – Prerequisites

You need:

• AWS Account

• Ubuntu server / EC2 instance

• AWS CLI installed

• IAM User with S3 access

• Basic Linux command knowledge

📥 Step 2 – Install AWS CLI

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y unzip tar gzip
curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install
aws --version

👤 Step 3 – Create IAM User & Configure CLI

1. Go to AWS Console → IAM

2. Create a user backup-user with Programmatic access

3. Attach policy AmazonS3FullAccess (testing)

4. Save Access Key & Secret Key

On Ubuntu, run:

aws configure

Fill in:

• Access Key

• Secret Key

• Region ()

  

📦 Step 4 – Create S3 Bucket

📂 Step 5 – Prepare Local Folder

ls
cd aws
mkdir mybackup

Add your files (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.) here.

🖥 Step 6 – Create Backup & Restore Script

vim backup-to-s3.sh

#!/bin/bash

FOLDER_PATH="/home/ubuntu/mybackup"
BUCKET_NAME="s3-bucket-apurv-data"
LOG_FILE="/home/ubuntu/backup-log.txt"
DATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")

if [ "$1" == "backup" ]; then
    echo "[$DATE] Backup started..." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"
    aws s3 sync "$FOLDER_PATH" "s3://$BUCKET_NAME/" --exact-timestamps --sse AES256 >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1
    echo "[$DATE] Backup completed." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"

elif [ "$1" == "restore" ]; then
    echo "[$DATE] Restore started..." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"
    aws s3 sync "s3://$BUCKET_NAME/" "$FOLDER_PATH" --exact-timestamps >> "$LOG_FILE" 2>&1
    echo "[$DATE] Restore completed." | tee -a "$LOG_FILE"

else
    echo "Usage: $0 backup|restore"
fi

Step 7 – Manual Backup & Restore

# Make the script executable
chmod +x backup-to-s3.sh    # make it executable

# Take a backup
./backup-to-s3.sh backup    # to take backup

# Restore from backup
./backup-to-s3.sh restore   # to restore

⏱ Step 8 – Automate with Cron

crontab -e

Add:

*/2 * * * * /home/ubuntu/aws/backup-to-s3.sh backup

This cron job will automatically run the backup script every 2 minutes.

🧪 Step 9 – Case Studies

📌 Case 1 – Existing Data in Bucket

When the bucket was created, it already contained:

index.html
style.css
script.js

Backup script compared timestamps:

• Same files → Skipped

• Updated files → Uploaded again

📌 Case 2 – Adding a New File

We added:

echo "This is a test file" > /home/ubuntu/mybackup/test.txt

✅Check Total files and folders :-

ls

Backup run:

/home/ubuntu/aws/backup-to-s3.sh backup

Verification:

aws s3 ls s3://s3-bucket-apurv-data/ --recursive --human-readable --summarize

Now test.txt appears in the bucket.

🏁 Conclusion

We successfully built an automated backup & restore system with:

• AWS S3

• AWS CLI

• Cron automation

• Logging & encryption

With this setup, your data is secure, versioned, and restorable anytime.

👨‍💻 About the Author

This series isn't just about using AWS; it's about mastering the core services that power modern cloud infrastructure.

📬 Let's Stay Connected

• 📧 Email: gujjarapurv181@gmail.com

• 🐙 GitHub: github.com/ApurvGujjar07

• 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/apurv-gujjar