Use Google Drive as Backup Drive

We all are worried about our data and would opt to have a backup. But it seems to be a bit expensive when it comes with third party backups or an extra drive for backup. So why don’t we consider one of our Google Drive as backup drive. Gmail offers upto 15GB storage space for backup drive, which would be enough for a start up to configure backups. Here in this article I would explain how we can configure google drive on our linux servers an use it to upload backup.

GDrive

Gdrive is a command line tool which manages, uploads, downloads, deletes and shares files on Google Drive. You can download the tool from Github at https://github.com/prasmussen/gdrive.

Unfortunately it does not support file synchronisation.

Installation

Download the binary package from the github website and install

sudo mv drive /usr/local/bin/gdrive

Alternatively you can install from source code. Next, simply run drive and it will provide you a URL which authenticates you using OAuth.

Configuring gdrive

[email protected] [/root]# gdrive list
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline&client_id=367116sdf323e23221053-7n0vf5akeru7on6o2fjinrecpdoe99eg.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=urn%3Afdietf%3Awg%3Aoauth%3A2.0%3Aoob&response_type=code&scope=https%df3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fdrive&state=state
Paste the authorization code:

you will get a unique URL to authorize gdrive with your google drive. Open your google drive in your browser and visit the URL specified in the output. This will ask you to authorize and click on allow. Once done, you will get a unique authorization code. Paste it there and press enter. Done !!

Now your server is authorized to upload/dowload/list the contents of your google drive. You can use the following commands to work with gdrive. A simple bash script to create backup and upload to grive will now help you to upload the contents.

Usage

gdrive [global options] <verb> [verb options]

Options

Global options:
        -a, --advanced Advanced Mode -- lets you specify your own oauth client id and secret on setup
        -c, --config   Set application path where config and token is stored. Defaults to ~/.gdrive
        -v, --version  Print version
        -h, --help     Show this help

Verbs:
    delete:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
    download:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
        -s, --stdout   Write file content to stdout
            --pop      Download latest file, and remove it from google drive
    folder:
        -t, --title    Folder to create (*)
        -p, --parent   Parent Id of the folder
            --share    Share created folder
    info:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
    list:
        -m, --max      Max results
        -t, --title    Title filter
        -q, --query    Query (see https://developers.google.com/drive/search-parameters)
        -s, --shared   Show shared status (Note: this will generate 1 http req per file)
        -n, --noheader Do not show the header
    share:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
    unshare:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
    upload:
        -f, --file     File or directory to upload (*)
        -s, --stdin    Use stdin as file content (*)
        -t, --title    Title to give uploaded file. Defaults to filename
        -p, --parent   Parent Id of the file
            --share    Share uploaded file
    url:
        -i, --id       File Id (*)
        -p, --preview  Generate preview url (default)
        -d, --download Generate download url

Examples

List files

$ gdrive list
Id                             Title                     Size     Created
0B3X9GlR6EmbnenBYSFI4MzN0d2M   drive-freebsd-amd64       5 MB     2013-01-01 21:57:01
0B3X9GlR6EmbnOVRQN0t6RkxVQk0   drive-windows-amd64.exe   5 MB     2013-01-01 21:56:41
0B3X9GlR6Embnc1BtVVU1ZHp2UjQ   drive-linux-arm           4 MB     2013-01-01 21:57:23
0B3X9GlR6EmbnU0ZnbGV4dlk1T00   drive-linux-amd64         5 MB     2013-01-01 21:55:06
0B3X9GlR6EmbncTk1TXlMdjd1ODQ   drive-darwin-amd64        5 MB     2013-01-01 21:53:34

Upload file or directory

$ gdrive upload --file drive-linux-amd64
Id: 0B3X9GlR6EmbnU0ZnbGV4dlk1T00
Title: drive-linux-amd64
Size: 5 MB
Created: 2013-01-01 21:55:06
Modified: 2013-01-01 21:55:06
Md5sum: 334ad48f6e64646071f302275ce19a94
Shared: False
Uploaded 'drive-linux-amd64' at 510 KB/s, total 5 MB

Upload file or directory to a particular folder

$ gdrive upload -p 0B3X9GlR6EmbncTk1TXlMdjd1ODQ --file drive-linux-amd64

Download file

$ gdrive download --id 0B3X9GlR6EmbnenBYSFI4MzN0d2M
Downloaded 'drive-freebsd-amd64' at 2 MB/s, total 5 MB

Share a file

$ gdrive share --id 0B3X9GlR6EmbnOVRQN0t6RkxVQk0
File 'drive-windows-amd64.exe' is now readable by everyone @ https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B3X9GlR6EmbnOVRQN0t6RkxVQk0

Pipe content directly to your drive

$ echo "Hello World" | gdrive upload --stdin --title hello.txt
Id: 0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs
Title: hello.txt
Size: 12 B
Created: 2013-01-01 22:05:44
Modified: 2013-01-01 22:05:43
Md5sum: e59ff97941044f85df5297e1c302d260
Shared: False
Uploaded 'hello.txt' at 6 B/s, total 12 B

Print file to stdout

$ gdrive download --stdout --id 0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs
Hello World

Get file info

$ gdrive info --id 0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs
Id: 0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs
Title: hello.txt
Size: 12 B
Created: 2013-01-01 22:05:44
Modified: 2013-01-01 22:05:43
Md5sum: e59ff97941044f85df5297e1c302d260
Shared: False

Get a url to the file

$ gdrive url --id 0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B3X9GlR6EmbnVHlHZWZCZVJ4eGs

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