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VPS to VPS backup?
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VPS to VPS backup?

spycrab101spycrab101 Member
edited February 2013 in Help

I would like to try backing up my VPS'es offsite and I was wondering what the best way of doing this was, preferably with encryption. I've looked at rsync but perhaps a simple script would work better.

I was also wondering if there was a way to keep track of the software installed on a particular VPS. Incase I needed to do a complete reinstall at some point.

I am interested in hearing anyone's solutions to doing this. Thanks.

Comments

  • MiguelQMiguelQ Member
    edited February 2013

    @spycrab101 said: I was also wondering if there was a way to keep track of the software installed on a particular VPS. Incase I needed to do a complete reinstall at some point.

    In Debian:

    dpkg --get-selections > packages.txt
    
  • @spycrab101 said: I've looked at rsync but perhaps a simple script would work better.

    Rsync is so advanced, yet so easy to use

  • Awmusic12635Awmusic12635 Member, Host Rep

    Just get a nice sized backup/storage server offsite or use something like S3 depending on how much data you have.

    Use a simple rsync script, let me find the link of the one I use.

  • emgemg Veteran

    It isn't clear whether you mean that the backup files themselves are encrypted or the network transfer is encrypted.

    Somebody posted a crude backup procedure using tar on WHT. See:

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1215449
    ...and post 15 and 16 in this thread:
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1224354

    Just as the person who posted the explanation says, I use the tar command to make the backup, then transfer the backup (tgz file) to the other VPS using sftp (and visa versa). I modified the tar command a little bit, so that the backup skips everything in the /backup directory (--exclude=/backup/* instead of the individual file names). That way, I can rename the backups to keep multiple copies around, and also store the other VPS' backups in the same /backup directory.

    The sftp transfer (put or get) is encrypted. I don't bother to encrypt the files, at least not yet.

    If I wanted to encrypt the backup files themselves, I would encrypt them before they are transferred, and use either openssl or gpg.

  • @emg said: It isn't clear whether you mean that the backup files themselves are encrypted or the network transfer is encrypted.

    both

  • You can use rsync over SSH, just add the -e ssh option to rsync.

  • I've now got rsync doing crontab, current process list and important files. Thanks for all the help so far.

    If anyone has anything else that they think is important to backup then feel free to let me know.

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