Linux Files/Folders to Backup

Linux Files/Folders to Backup

*** WARNING, DATA LOSS CAN OCCUR, THIS IS A GUIDELINE, GIVEN AS-IS, WE TAKE ZERO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DATA LOSS, USE AT YOUR OWN WILL ****

Most Newer UNIX/Linux administrators do not know what files/folders that need to be backed up. The answer is not common because it depends on what you are doing. Here are the common ones:

/etc – contains all main configuration files for the system/modules

/boot – Contains Critical Boot Parameters/configs

/home – contains all user account data, by default when a user account is created, the home folder is in /home

/root – usually where admins backup configs, scripts, etc

/var/log – where all system logs are kept

/var/spool/cron – where Scheduled Tasks are Stored

/opt – where a large portion of 3rd party programs install to

/var/www/html – if you have apache running on the server, this is the default home directory for apache

/var/lib/mysql – where Live MySQL Databases are stored

** if you have databases, that should be backed up separately using some sort of data dump as the prefered method, otherwise you WILL have corrupt data not covered by this article **