XF 2.2 Creating backups of root folder via rsync. Yay or nay?

[moccajoghurt]

If I want a complete replication of my xenforo forum, I need to replicate the MySql database and the root folder containing all xenforo files.
So my plan is to use rsync on the root folder and sync all files to my backup server. (I already have the MySql replication running).

Is this approach reasonable or is there a best practice I am missing?

Thanks!

 

[Sim]

Are you creating a backup or a replication? They are not the same thing.

A replication will generally propagate deletions from the production server to the backup server, which means you'll lose accidentally deleted data in any case.

A backup should be a "point in time" snapshot of your server. Use a tool like zip or tar/gz to take a snapshot first and then use rsync to copy the folder where your backups are stored.

Similarly with MySQL - replication is not backup. You want to dump the database contents using mysqldump, compress it and then rsync that compressed file.