Backup cronjob with postgresql as Zammad user

[lerak07]

Infos:

• Used Zammad version: 4.1.x

• Used Zammad installation type: package

• Operating system: debian 10

• Browser + version:

Expected behavior:

• Zammad files and postgresql database to backup successfully

• With this output

# Zammad backup started - Thu Jun 24 00:20:01 CEST 2021!

creating file backup...

creating postgresql backup...

# Zammad backuped successfully - Thu Jun 24 00:20:58 CEST 2021!

Actual behavior:

• Postgresql database is not backupped without changes to /opt/zammad/contrib/backup/functions

# Zammad backup started - Sun Jul  4 00:20:01 CEST 2021!

creating file backup...

creating postgresql backup...

Password: su: Authentication failure

mv: cannot stat '/tmp/20210704002001_zammad_db.psql.gz': No such file or directory

# Zammad backuped successfully - Sun Jul  4 00:20:59 CEST 2021!

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

• Execute /opt/zammad/contrib/backup/zammad_backup.sh while running Zammad with postgresql as the Zammad user.
• add 20 0 * * * /opt/zammad/contrib/backup/zammad_backup.sh to crontab of zammad user

Temporary solution:

• change line 54 inside /opt/zammad/contrib/backup/functions from su -c "pg_dump -c ${DB_NAME} | gzip > /tmp/${TIMESTAMP}_zammad_db.psql.gz" postgres to pg_dump -c ${DB_NAME} | gzip > /tmp/${TIMESTAMP}_zammad_db.psql.gz

• source: Backup script does not work as zammad user when DB is Postgresql · Issue #2705 · zammad/zammad · GitHub

• The problem with this solution is that the script gets overwritten after an Zammad update. This is not really a durable solution sadly.

Remarks

• The documentation says that cronjobs should be executed using the Zammad user. This is not possible when using a postgresql database

• link to documentation: Backup and Restore — Zammad documentation

Final questions

• Should I use the Root for executing the cronjobs?

Thank you for your time

[MrGeneration]

Right now the best way for backing up is using the root user.
If that’s not an option for you, you could copy away the backup scripts and adjust functions as needed.

With the next version the backup scripts will support more situations which may solve your issue as well.
See: Maintenance: Improve backup and restore handling. by mgruner · Pull Request #3621 · zammad/zammad · GitHub