Backup VPS with freepbx

For safety reasons, I wish to make a backup of the VPS containing my freepbx installation.

  1. In the download page of Clonezilla, only the versions for Ubuntu and Debian are listed: https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
    Which is the right version of Clonezilla for Freepbx?

  2. Is Clonezilla the most recommended tool for Freepbx, or there are other better ones?

  3. Where I can find a tutorial for making a clone backup of freepbx?

Note: I know that a good alternative of a VPS clone is to make a backup of the Freepbx database using the backup&restore. The problem is that, in case of disaster and I want to reinstall everything from scratch, first one has to setup freepbx from the ISO image and apply some several settings manually, before he can restore the database backup. My purpose is to have a clone backup so that I can reinstall it in few minutes.

Most cloud providers offer both snapshot and backup capability. For example, see

Some of the techniques mentioned are likely to apply to your VPS.

You want to use the Clonezilla Live CD. Then have the VPS machine boot from the LiveCD. Then you can make your backup and restore wherever you like. Assuming hardware compatibility.

This is the same link I posted; the problem is that the table (in the “Other notes” column) says “ubuntu based” or “debian based”. Freepbx is neither Debian nor Ubuntu.

These backup and snapshot files are in most cases proprietary and not exportable to other cloud services.
The goal of my post is to find a general purpose procedure that generated a standard ISO file.

I would recommend using your VPS provider’s snapshot/backup tools for recovery on that provider.

Also make a daily or weekly off-site backup with FreePBX Backup & Restore.

If you need to switch providers, restore a backup to fresh FreePBX instance. Cloning the disk is not necessary.

That is only a restriction if you use a commercial module. (FreePBX is orthogonal to the OS distribution, but the commercial modules are only supported on SNG7,)

I’d question your use of ISO, as you probably want a raw disk image, which would make it a one file ISO 9660 filesystem and in any case, most CD files have Rock Ridge or Joliet extensions, so aren’t standard ISO 9660.

Especially if you are not burning it onto a CD, all you probably need is the raw copy of the disk or filesystem, which can be as little as the result of "dd if=/dev/sd… of=file not on the system being backed up, You will probably need a bootable, ram disk based, repair OS to create the backup and do the restore. The OS installer DVD will often do for this,

On the other hand, the suggestion above to use platform native backup for fast restore, and FreePBX backup/FreePBX install/FreePBX restore for moves may well be much easier and less fragile.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.