webuhu
I try to get some opinions about the following use case for Elixir.
I currently have shell scripts for the task of a nightly file backup.
Local commands
- mount encrypted securefs storage (“long” running interactive shell command - type password)
- rsync files to securefs mount
- stop securefs mount process
- rsync encrypted securefs storage files to remote storage
Remote commands
- rotate backups (
mv&cp -al)
Now, I’m thinking about triggering all of this commands from within an Elixir application.
Is this a good idea? By heavily using System.cmd/3 and maybe Port.
Where in this use case is using Port the better choice?
The case why I would love to do all of the above in Elixir, is I want to use my existing Logger backends for e.g. log to Matrix on success, log to SMS on failure.
And I wouln’t need to configure a cronjob for running the nightly backup task.
So what are your thoughts about this?
Where Next?
Trending in Questions
Other Trending Topics
Latest on Elixir Forum
Sponsor Spotlight
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Categories:
Sub Categories:
Forums
Popular Tags
- #ecto
- #liveview
- #troubleshooting
- #learning-elixir
- #library
- #deployment
- #erlang
- #testing
- #genserver
- #mix
- #absinthe
- #remote-other
- #otp
- #plug
- #how-to-question
- #macros
- #postgres
- #elixirconf
- #channels
- #exunit
- #discussion
- #code-sync
- #podcasts
- #javascript
- #onsite
- #dialyzer
- #docker
- #authentication
- #ai
- #umbrella
- #full-time-contract
- #podcasts-by-brainlid
- #ecto-query
- #blog-post
- #elixirconf-us
- #elixir-ls
- #phoenix_html
- #iex
- #graphql
- #genstage
- #websockets
- #supervisor
- #advent-of-code
- #distillery
- #processes
- #elixirconf-eu
- #api
- #forms
- #security
- #performance
Our Sponsors
Build Elixir applications with speed and confidence.
We build reliable cloud platforms for business-critical systems.
Catch errors, track performance, monitor hosts and more.
Error tracking, logs, uptime, and Just Enough APM. Built for developers.
Elixir, Erlang & BEAM conferences from Code Sync - join us in 2026!
Bringing learning, work and compliance together since 1987.
Producing high quality Elixir screencasts since 2017.
**Building the future of software with AI, trust, and human connection.**
The team behind Membrane, Popcorn, LiveDebugger. Available for hire.
Courses that'll move you from confusion to "Aha, now I get it!"
Showing Posts 1 to 2- Show Best Posts
- Show All (oldest first)
- Show All (newest first)
LostKobrakai
Personally I favour pull based backups, and I have an elixir application connecting to some of our servers and doing db backups and moving them to S3. I only wouldn’t want to let the application I want to backup data of handle it’s own backuping. Chances are a bug, which requires you to rollback to a backup could also have broken the backup system, so keeping those separate from each other is probably a good idea.
webuhu
Good idea to use pull data instead of push.
But of course the system (local commands) are already separated from the data layer.