Possible to backup whole server on one go with easy restore?

Virtualmin
1

I have been reading about backup Virtual Servers and Virtualmin Configuration and I am still a bit confused and wondered if someone could just summarise it for me…

Ideally what I want is to be able to just backup the entire server in one go to a destination, then in the event the server explodes, I could then create a new server, install Virtualmin and just restore the whole server from that one file to include all settings, virtual servers, everything. Is this possible? This seems the quickest way to get back up.

Because from what i have been reading it seems I have to split that task up into:

  1. Virtualmin Configuration backups

  2. Virtual Server Backups (individual backups)

  3. File System Backups?

So do I need to enable all three of these? To restore I would first restore Virtualmin configuration backup and then each virtual server separately? What is File System Backups for if I would just do these first two? is Is File System Backup to replace or is in addition to the Virtual Server and Virtualmin Configuration backups?

So I am a bit confused. I would just like to know what he easiest and quickest way is to restore the entire system and all accounts in the event of server failure, without having to restore things individually again (any packages installed and all virtual server accounts).

Thanks a lot

2

Oh, I just noticed the Webmin Configuration files backup does not have an Amazon S3 option. I was hoping to backup everything to there.

3

This sounds like you are really looking for a full image backup. I would suggest that you look into using an image backup solution.

If you have access to ssh, you can use the dd tool (i.e. dd if=/dev/hda of=~/hdadisk.img) to backup the server to an image or software like Clonezilla. Once you have an image you can upload it to AWS or anywhere else for that matter including a USB hard drive or NAS.

References:
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/10/dd-command-examples/
http://clonezilla.org/

Hope this helps.

4

Yeah an image of the whole server, everything, to restore in the event of complete failure. Its for the office computer which is not hosted with a dedicated provider that would have their own system (e.g. Libode).

Looked at cloudzilla but looked too complicated for what i consider should be a fundamental process! I will take a look at dd (looks to easy!), and others.

Thanks