Smart Game Server Backups with Bash: Hourly, Weekly, and Monthly Rotation

Game servers store precious player progress and in-game assets. A crash or file corruption can ruin that data—and your community’s trust. Backups are the insurance policy you can’t skip. But storing every backup forever isn’t practical. That’s where a rotating backup system shines—keeping only the most recent hourly, weekly, and monthly snapshots.

This guide walks you through building a simple Bash-based backup system that stores:

• The last 5 hourly backups
• The last 3 weekly backups
• The last 2 monthly backups

Designed for game developers and server admins, this guide offers a real working script and a step-by-step setup. Clean, SEO-friendly, and practical.

Why Rotate Hourly, Weekly, and Monthly?

• Hourly backups help restore recent player progress quickly.
• Weekly snapshots are useful for detecting bugs or data drift.
• Monthly archives let you go back further in time if needed.
• Rotating copies keep disk usage under control—no cleanup headaches.

Let’s dive into the Bash script.

The Bash Script

Here’s a Bash script that handles hourly, weekly, and monthly backups with rotation logic.

bash📋
#!/bin/bash

# === CONFIGURATION ===
SOURCE_DIR="/path/to/game_server"
BASE_BACKUP_DIR="/backups/game_server"
MAX_HOURLY=5
MAX_WEEKLY=3
MAX_MONTHLY=2

TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
DAY_OF_WEEK=$(date +%u)      # 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday)
DAY_OF_MONTH=$(date +%d)     # 01 to 31

# === HOURLY BACKUP ===
HOURLY_DIR="$BASE_BACKUP_DIR/hourly"
mkdir -p "$HOURLY_DIR"
HOURLY_FILE="$HOURLY_DIR/game_backup_$TIMESTAMP.tar.gz"
tar -czf "$HOURLY_FILE" "$SOURCE_DIR"
cd "$HOURLY_DIR" && ls -tp | grep -v '/$' | tail -n +$((MAX_HOURLY + 1)) | xargs -I {} rm -- {}

# === WEEKLY BACKUP (runs on Sundays) ===
if [ "$DAY_OF_WEEK" -eq 7 ]; then
  WEEKLY_DIR="$BASE_BACKUP_DIR/weekly"
  mkdir -p "$WEEKLY_DIR"
  WEEKLY_FILE="$WEEKLY_DIR/game_backup_$TIMESTAMP.tar.gz"
  tar -czf "$WEEKLY_FILE" "$SOURCE_DIR"
  cd "$WEEKLY_DIR" && ls -tp | grep -v '/$' | tail -n +$((MAX_WEEKLY + 1)) | xargs -I {} rm -- {}
fi

# === MONTHLY BACKUP (runs on 1st) ===
if [ "$DAY_OF_MONTH" -eq 01 ]; then
  MONTHLY_DIR="$BASE_BACKUP_DIR/monthly"
  mkdir -p "$MONTHLY_DIR"
  MONTHLY_FILE="$MONTHLY_DIR/game_backup_$TIMESTAMP.tar.gz"
  tar -czf "$MONTHLY_FILE" "$SOURCE_DIR"
  cd "$MONTHLY_DIR" && ls -tp | grep -v '/$' | tail -n +$((MAX_MONTHLY + 1)) | xargs -I {} rm -- {}
fi

How It Works

• Hourly: Always runs. Keeps the latest 5 backups.
• Weekly: Runs on Sundays. Keeps 3 most recent weeks.
• Monthly: Runs on the 1st of each month. Keeps 2 most recent months.

Each backup is a compressed .tar.gz of the server directory with a unique timestamp.

Setup Instructions

1. Save the Script Save it as backup_game_server.sh, and replace paths in SOURCE_DIR and BASE_BACKUP_DIR.
2. Make it Executable

bash📋
chmod +x /path/to/backup_game_server.sh

3. Run Manually to Test

bash📋
/path/to/backup_game_server.sh

4. Set Up Cron Edit crontab:

bash📋
crontab -e

Add this line to run it every hour:

bash📋
0 * * * * /path/to/backup_game_server.sh

Example Directory Structure

Your /backups/game_server/ folder will look like this:

📋
/backups/game_server/
├── hourly/
│   ├── game_backup_20250604_010000.tar.gz
│   ├── ...
├── weekly/
│   ├── game_backup_20250602_000000.tar.gz
│   ├── ...
├── monthly/
│   ├── game_backup_20250601_000000.tar.gz
│   ├── ...

Older files beyond the retention limit are automatically deleted.

Pro Tips

• Check Disk Usage: Run du -sh /backups/game_server/* to monitor space.
• Restore Easily:

bash📋
tar -xzf /backups/game_server/hourly/game_backup_20250604_010000.tar.gz -C /tmp/restore_test

• Secure Your Backups:

bash📋
chmod 700 /backups/game_server
chown root:root /backups/game_server -R

• Offsite Sync:

bash📋
rsync -az /backups/game_server user@remote:/remote/location

Troubleshooting

• Cron Not Running? Check logs:
  • /var/log/syslog (Debian/Ubuntu)
  • /var/log/cron (RHEL/CentOS)
• Permission Errors? Make sure the user running the script can access all relevant directories.
• Missing tar? Install it:

bash📋
sudo apt install tar

Final Words

This Bash script gives you a clean, automatic, and rotating backup system for your game server. It’s easy to integrate with cron and doesn’t clutter your storage. You can sleep better knowing you’ve got hourly, weekly, and monthly fallbacks—without lifting a finger.

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