A Practical Guide to Red Hat® Linux® 8

Backing Up Files

One of the most neglected tasks of the system administrator is making backup copies of files on a regular basis. The backup copies are vital in three instances: when the system malfunctions and files are lost, when a catastrophic disaster (fire, earthquake, and so on) occurs, and when a user or the system administrator deletes or corrupts a file by accident. Even when you set up RAID striping with parity, or a mirror, you still need to maintain a backup. Although mirrors and RAID are useful for fault tolerance (disk failure), they will not help in a catastrophic disaster or when a file is accidentally removed or corrupted. It is a good idea to have a written backup policy and to keep copies of backups offsite (in another building, ...