How to Set Up Automatic VPS Backups to an External Storage

2 weeks ago
nikolay
2 minutes

Automatic VPS Backup Setup

🔹 Why It’s Important
Automatic backups are essential for data security and server stability. They help to:

  • protect your data from loss in case of system failure or human error;
  • quickly restore your VPS after a crash or update problem;
  • store backups safely on external storage, independent from your VPS.

It’s recommended to schedule backups daily or weekly to a remote server or cloud.

⚙️ 1. Preparing the VPS
Ensure you have SSH access to the VPS.

Update the system:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install the required tools.

For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install rsync -y

For CentOS:

sudo yum install rsync -y

Make sure you have access to the external storage (remote VPS, FTP, or cloud).

🌐 2. Setting Up Backups with rsync
rsync is a simple and reliable tool to synchronize data between servers. Example command:

rsync -avz /var/www/ user@backupserver:/backups/vps1/

Where:

  • /var/www/ — directory to back up;
  • user@backupserver — username and IP/domain of backup server;
  • /backups/vps1/ — path to store backups.

💡 Tip: Set up SSH key-based authentication to avoid password prompts:

ssh-keygen
ssh-copy-id user@backupserver

☁️ 3. Using rclone for Cloud Backups
rclone works with cloud storage like Google Drive, Dropbox, AWS S3, etc.

Installation:

sudo apt install rclone -y

or

sudo yum install rclone -y

Configuration:

rclone config

Choose n (new remote), set a name (e.g. gdrive), select storage type (Google Drive, S3, etc.), authorize access.

Example command:

rclone sync /var/www/ gdrive:vps-backups --progress
🕒 4. Automating with cron
To run backups automatically, create a cron job.

Open the cron editor:

sudo crontab -e

Add one of these lines:

0 3 * * * rsync -avz /var/www/ user@backupserver:/backups/vps1/ >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

or, for rclone:

0 2 * * * rclone sync /var/www/ gdrive:vps-backups --progress >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

Explanation:

  • 0 3 * * * — runs every day at 03:00;
  • output is saved to /var/log/backup.log.

🧱 5. Checking Backups

  • Verify that new files appear in /backups or cloud storage.
  • Try restoring a few files to confirm integrity.
  • Regularly clean up old backups to save storage space.