Using dump for Linux backups has saved adminisrators for a long time. This little howto shows you how to easily setup a full backup of your root filesystem to a remote ftp server.

Simply create the following files:

# cat ftp 
host ftp.example.com
user myuser
# cat pwd 
mypassword
 

Then run the following command:

# dump -a -0 -h 0 -f - / | gzip -c | openssl enc -bf-cbc -pass file:/root/.backup/pwd |
 ncftpput -S .tmp -c -f /root/.backup/ftp /backup_root_0.dump
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Mon Feb 22 22:51:54 2010
  DUMP: Dumping /dev/sda1 (/) to standard output
  DUMP: Label: /
  DUMP: Writing 10 Kilobyte records
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 990068 blocks.
  DUMP: Volume 1 started with block 1 at: Mon Feb 22 22:51:55 2010
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
  DUMP: Volume 1 completed at: Mon Feb 22 22:53:31 2010
  DUMP: Volume 1 992390 blocks (969.13MB)
  DUMP: Volume 1 took 0:01:36
  DUMP: Volume 1 transfer rate: 10337 kB/s
  DUMP: 992390 blocks (969.13MB)
  DUMP: finished in 96 seconds, throughput 10337 kBytes/sec
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Mon Feb 22 22:51:54 2010
  DUMP: Date this dump completed:  Mon Feb 22 22:53:31 2010
  DUMP: Average transfer rate: 10337 kB/s
  DUMP: DUMP IS DONE

To restore the backup, you may download the backup files from ftp and use the following command:

cd /path/to/extract/the/files/ && zcat /tmp/backup_root_0.dump | restore -v -r -f -