my astrails-safe backup (part of it anyway)

backup.rb

mysqldump do
    options "-ceKq --single-transaction --create-options"

    username = "root"
    pass = "redacted"

    user username
    password pass
    socket "/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock"

    dbs = IO.popen("/usr/bin/mysql -u #{username} -p#{pass} -e 'show databases' --batch --skip-column-names")
    databases = dbs.readlines
    dbs.close
    databases.each do |db|
      database db.chomp.to_sym
    end
  end

  tar do
    options "-h" # dereference symlinks
    archive "dot-configs",      :files => "/home/*/.[^.]*"
    ["/var/www/wp-sites", "/var/www/apps"].each do |directory|
      Dir.foreach(directory) do |sub_dir|
        target = "#{directory}/#{sub_dir}"
        if sub_dir.length > 2 # ignoring . and ..
          archive sub_dir, :files => "#{target}/current/", :exclude => ["#{target}/current/logs", "#{target}/current/tmp"]
        end
      end
    end
  end