This script provides functionality to create automatic snapshots of AWS EC2 instances and to rotate them by deleting the snapshots older than a given amount of days.

1. Create a new user (https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/?#users) having at least following permissions:

   • CreateSnapshot
   • DeleteSnapshot
   • DescribeSnapshotAttribute
   • DescribeSnapshots
   • DescribeVolumeAttribute
   • DescribeVolumeStatus
   • DescribeVolumes
   • DescribeInstances
   • CreateTags

2. Define following environment variables containing the credentials of the new user:

   • $AWS_BACKUP_ACCESS_KEY, i.e. AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
   • $AWS_BACKUP_SECRET_KEY, i.e. wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY

3. Define a new environment variable $AWS_BACKUP_REGION containing the region of your machine, i.e. "eu-west-1"

4. By default the snapshots older than 30 days are deleted. If you want to change it, you can adjust the variable $daysToKeep at the beginning of the script

5. Run and enjoy

6. If you want to run this script as a cron job, please add following line to the root's cronjobs (with your path to the script):

       01 01 * * * export AWS_BACKUP_ACCESS_KEY="AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE" && export AWS_BACKUP_SECRET_KEY="wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY" && export AWS_BACKUP_REGION="eu-west-1" &&  /bin/bash /home/ec2-user/aws-backup/aws-backup.sh