Backup/Mirror, best/easiest way?

[dsch]

Hello All

I would like to know how to backup or mirror your bluehost account. Any ideas for an easy solution? :) Of course, the databases should also be backuped or mirored.

[DrSuSE]

Probably easier to answer with more information. If you've SSH access, you could use tar (i.e. "tar czvf backup-20060210.tgz public_html") and then download the archive via FTP or transfer it to a local shell via scp or one of a hundred other ways. You could also use wget if you run on Linux locally ("man wget" for full details).

--DrSuSE

[macgyver2]

Well if you run linux/unix on the machine you're backing up to, I'd recommend rsync. It's possible (or so I've heard) to get rsync working on windows, but I don't know about that...

If you run windows, there's a really cool program called Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) that syncs files. It works between two linux/unix machines, too. I've used it in the past and I really like it. I've only used it interactively (if it comes across a file that's been changed both places it prompts as to what to do...not good for using with cron) but I think there's a way to set a default choice, and for pure backups there shouldn't be any files that confuse it anyway.

To get the databases in with your backups just use mysqldump before the files are backed up.

[DrSuSE]

Yeah, rsync works well too. Most of these types of backup mechanisms will be similar... especially if you're not running some huge and complex website (where certain systems PROs and CONs would come into play). In addition to mysqldump, you can also use phpMyAdmin from your BH control panel to backup database data (via the export options).

If you plan to have these backups run in automated fashion, rsync or wget with mysqldump is probably the way you want to go. Use tar (which can be cron'd) if you want separate dated archives to keep on hand.

--DrSuSE

[dsch]

Great! Thanks a lot for the information! I was looking for an automated way. I'll try with a simple unix setup and rsync :)

Addendum: Also, I would like to be able to do progressive backups to save bandwidth, but rsync probably do this?