Linux commands I used to backup my Contabo VPS Ubuntu Linux iRedMail Mail Server

Subject: Linux commands I used to backup my Contabo VPS Ubuntu Linux iRedMail Mail Server

Good day from Singapore,

These are the Linux commands I used to backup my Contabo Virtual Private Server (VPS) Ubuntu Linux iRedMail Mail Server.

Yes, I have a virtual private server in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Detailed instructions follow.

Change directory into the root directory of your Linux server.

# cd / 

GNU tar is a backup utility for Linux systems.

# nohup tar -cvpjf backup.tar.bz2 \

--exclude=/backup.tar.bz2 \

--exclude=/nohup.out \

--exclude=/swapfile \

--exclude=/proc \

--exclude=/tmp \

--exclude=/dev \

--exclude=/sys \

--exclude=/run / &

Monitor the progress of the backup job.

# tail -f nohup.out

Check if the backup job has finished/completed.

# ps -ef | grep tar

Check the filesize of your final backup file.

# du -h backup.tar.bz2

2.8G    backup.tar.bz2

On Windows 10, the filesize of my backup file is 2.75 GB.

Rename the backup file so that it is more descriptive.

# mv backup.tar.bz2 contabo-ubuntu-iredmail-24sep2021.tar.bz2

Transfer the backup file *.tar.bz2 to your off-site backup destination.

I chose bz2 over gzip because it has a higher compression, resulting in a smaller filesize. XZ has an even higher compression but the compression process is slower than bz2.

Then,

# rm contabo-ubuntu-iredmail-24sep2021.tar.bz2

# rm nohup.out

Reference Guide: BackupYourSystem/TAR

Link: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem/TAR

Reference Guide: How to Run Linux Commands in Background

Link: https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-run-linux-commands-in-background/

Information

===========

My Ubuntu Linux server is Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-142-generic x86_64). 64-bit platform. Linux Kernel version is 4.15.0-142-generic.

My iRedMail version is 1.4.0.

My iRedAdmin version is 1.3 (MySQL). MySQL is a free and open source database server.

Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming, 43 years old as of 25 Sep 2021 Saturday, is a TARGETED INDIVIDUAL living in Singapore. He is an IT Consultant with a System Integrator (SI)/computer firm in Singapore. He is an IT enthusiast.

REFERENCES

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[1] https://www.mail-archive.com/help-tar@gnu.org/msg00317.html

[2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-tar/2021-09/msg00000.html