Best way to backup a running linux server [closed]

I'm running a IRC/web server on ubuntu 9.04 on slightly old hardware, and well, i'm not sure if anything will break. While i periodically shutdown the box and back it up with clonezilla, i'm looking for a way to backup a running system.

I've tried mondo (which didn't work for me, and there's no updated docs on the ubuntu wiki), so i'm wondering what other options i have?

Ideally i'd want something fire and forget- and obviously command line or curses based, and will backup a running server without the need for shutdown, to either an NFS,Samba share or USB, though i wouldn't mind needing a dedicated box to backup to since i could run that on a VM. Bare metal restore would be a bonus.

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4 Answers

I recommend using rsync.

My backup solution copies the data to a mounted samba share. I use an incremental backup so most of the time the backups are very short.

Set up a cron job to kick-off your script to run at an interval of your choosing.

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There is also rsnapshot, giving you periodical snapshots.

rsnapshot is a filesystem snapshot utility for making backups of local and remote systems.

Using rsync and hard links, it is possible to keep multiple, full backups instantly available. The disk space required is just a little more than the space of one full backup, plus incrementals.

Mondo seems to do exactly what i want - fairly simple, bootable bare metal backups. I'm completely fine with periodically doing a full system backup, since its not a very heavily used system, and i got a 1 tb box elsewhere... so... i guess that takes my vote.

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I use duplicity with ftplicity as a frontend, and I'm very happy with it.