It is recommended that you make a backup before making changes to your server settings. Also, our specialists can restore a virtual server from a backup that is created in automatic mode (for VPS).
1. Using the Server Control Panel
You can make backups in the control panel installed on your server. We recommend ISP Manager Lite, VestaCP, DirectAdmin, CentOS Web Panel.
Here you can set up a scheduled backup, or create a copy manually at any convenient time. The backup copy can be stored on the server itself, on a remote server, on a local computer or in cloud storage (Google Disc, Yandex Disk, Dropbox, etc.)
2. FTP Clients
You can also use dedicated software such as the FileZilla FTP client to create backups.
To connect via FTP or SFTP, you must use your credentials. After connecting, you can perform any operations with files - copy to the local computer from the server or from the local computer to the server.
3. tar and dd Applications (Linux)
On Linux, backups can be performed using the built-in dd and tar utilities.
Backing up with dd
Before creating a copy, make sure that there is enough space in the target directory to place the backup. To create a copy of your hard drive, run:
dd if=<source_disk> of=<full_copy_name> bs=8M conv=sync,noerror
For example:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/backup1/sda.img bs=8M conv=sync,noerror
- /dev/sda – the entire sda hard drive will be copied;
- of=/mnt/backup1/sda.img – the copy will be saved to /mnt/backup/sda.img,
- bs=8M – sets the hard disk cache size to speed up copying (512 bytes by default);
- conv=sync,noerror – bit-to-bit copying is set, read errors are ignored.
Backing up with tar
Tar has more options than dd and also allows you to create a system backup.
To create a system backup, enter:
tar -cvpzf <file_name>.tar.gz --exclude=<file_name> --one-file-system <target_directory>
For example:
tar -cvpzf backup1.tar.gz --exclude=/backup1.tar.gz --one-file-system /
- c - create a new backup archive;
- v - verbose mode (displaying information about current operations);
- p - saving file access rights;
- z - compression with the gzip utility;
- f <backup1> - full name of the backup file;
- --exclude = <backup1> - files / directories to be excluded from the backup. Be sure to exclude the backup file;
- --one-file-system - creating a copy of one file system. Media with other file systems will not be included into the copy;
- / - the directory to be copied.
To perform scheduled backups it is recommended to use the Cron task scheduler. In this case, backups will be created automatically. Also in the scheduler, you can configure the automatic copying of the created backups to a remote server.
4. Backup Plugins for CMS (for site recovery)
Most modern CMSs have built-in tools to create site or site database backups. It is advisable to use CMS backup before making changes to the site or updating themes/plugins.
If you have any questions, please create a ticket to technical support.