Backup to Amazon s3 using fuse, s3fs and rsync

Using Amazon simple storage service (S3) for automated online backups


Tools needed:

• Amazon S3 Web services Account.
• Fuse – user space file system
• S3FS
• Rsync

1. Amazon simple storage service (S3)


You need an active S3 account with Amazon. If you don’t have an S3 AWS account, then you have to sign up for one at http://www.amazon.com/s3

Once you sign up, note down your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. We need this in a short while.

2. FUSE

FUSE makes it possible to implement a filesystem in a user space program

Download the FUSE source code:

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse/files/fuse-2.X/2.8.1/fuse-2.8.1.tar.gz/download

Unpack the package:

tar -zxvf fuse-2.2.tar.gz



3. S3FS

s3fs is a fuse filesystem that allows you to mount an Amazon S3 bucket as a local filesystem. It stores files natively and transparently in S3 (i.e., you can use other programs to access the same files). Maximum file size=5G.

s3fs is stable and is being used in number of production environments, e.g., rsync backup to s3.