How to do a backup of files using the terminal?

Question

I've already done a backup of my database, using mysqldump like this:

mysqldump -h localhost -u dbUsername -p dbDatabase > backup.sql

After that the file is in a location outside public access, in my server, ready for download.

How may I do something like that for files? I've tried to google it, but I get all kind of results, but that.

I need to tell the server running ubuntu to backup all files inside folder X, and put them into a zip file.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

You can use tar for creating backups for a full system backup

tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz  / 

for a single folder

    tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz  /your/folder 

to create a gzipped tar file of your whole system. You might need additional excludes like --exclude=/proc --exclude=/sys --exclude=/dev/pts .

If you are outside of the single folder you want to backup the --exclude=/backup.tar.gz isn't needed.

More details for example here (you can do it over network, split the archive etc.).