I have a Ubuntu server configured to run apache and MySQL etc. I’ve configured it with all the modules and add ons. I have set up a cron job to backup the MySQL database periodically to a remote share.
My only concern is my main system. It the system failed, having to reconfigure all the modules to on how I have it currently set would be quite time consuming.
I discovered in webmin, there is a filesystem backup that allows you to backup the filesystem as a tar file. And it also allows you to restore it. My question is, is this backup of the entire system configuration with all the applications installed and configured? It so, if I was to want to replicate the exact same system I could build a new Ubuntu server with webmin then restore the filesystem tar file?
I’m not sure if this is what a filesystem backup is. If it’s not, then is there a way to do the sort of backup I’m describing so I can easily restore a system in the event of the system failing
They don’t appear to be using Virtualmin (why not would be a question for another topic), so that is unlikely to be helpful for them. But, Virtualmin certainly does make disaster recovery easier for websites.
A filesystem backup is literally a backup of the filesystem you tell it to back up.
I’d recommend starting with the documentation, and then asking specific questions:
That depends. (And, you may not need Webmin. A tarball can be extracted with tar all by itself.)
If you want to think of backups in terms of “I have a website and I want a simple disaster recovery process”, Virtualmin backups are exactly that (and it can span filesystems, if databases and homes are on a different filesystem from configuration files and such…it’s a backup of everything involved in serving the site, wherever it is stored). Recovery in that case is: Install a fresh OS on your new or old system, install Virtualmin, restore backups.
Filesystem backup could be a backup of the whole system, of course, but then you’d probably need to boot up with a live Linux USB in order to extract onto a freshly partitioned disk.