Daily backup from a Rails application

backup.daily.rb

#! /usr/bin/env ruby -w

# Include the YAML library
require 'yaml'

# Get the current Rails environment. Falls back on 'production'
backup_env = (ENV['RAILS_ENV'] || 'production')

# Set the backup location
backup_location = ARGV[0] || '.'

# Set the config file location
config_location = ARGV[1] || '/var/unmmdb/config/database.yml'

# Read the config file and assign the relevant values as variables
config = YAML.load_file(config_location)

database = config[backup_env]['database']
username = config[backup_env]['username']
password = config[backup_env]['password']

# Run mysqldump and write the bzipped output to the location
backup = system "mysqldump --add-drop-table --user=#{username} "\
                "--password=#{password} #{database} | bzip2 > "\
                "#{backup_location}/weekly.$(date -u \"+%G-%V\").sql.bz2"

# Output a message to stderr on error.
# This is the message cron delivers to root
if backup == false
  STDERR.puts 'Weekly Automatic Backup failed'
else
  puts 'Done.'
end