Hi guys what are you using to backup a server image to a USB HDD...I use macrium reflect for Windows...Haven't actually looked if macrium runs on centos 7... Thought I would see what you guys are using.... A free solution would be great I know you use tools like DD and rsync but I'm actually looking to image...thanks

when i want to create a complete backup image, i just use dd, but the disk can't be mounted. of course on a server you really only backup configuration files and important data. then restoring a server is quick and easy. So on a running disk rsync and tar work great too.

so you would just reinstall from scratch?

Not quite from scratch. You can highly automate the selection and installation of packages in several ways. Same for the configurations. Then pumping the data over is mostly a matter of rsync. This is for CentOS 7, right?

yes indeed...so you would install a basic server config...maybe from a kickstart file
then automate the packages installation using dd
then throw over all your data etc using rsync
all scripted of course...?

All scripted of course, but no role for dd in the process. It's been a while since I've dealt with kickstart files specifically but if you go that route one tip is to fetch the file or the list of packages over HTTPS during your development phase. It takes time to build a disc image but editing a text file is as good as instantaneous. So you can build a disc image that points to a file or two on your local server and work quickly with the text file instead of spending time generating ISO-9660 images. From what I recall, I did a lot (on the RPM systems) with post-installation scripts and kept the actual kickstart to a minimum.

How many machines are you talking about? If it's a small number it may not be worth a kickstart and a post-installation script will do fine. If it's a large number then a bare bones kickstart followed by ansible or similar would work.

no just my own private server...i sweated blood and tears to get wordpress going on it and i have everything setup the way i need...wouldnt want to lose everything to a hard drive crash etc...

Ok. Then just a regular backup would work and be less effort. There are a lot of tools for that but I prefer rsync for the data and tar for the configuration files, including the list of installed packages. rsync can even do incremental backup. Back up of the database(s) is a separate matter and requires an extra step before moving on to rsync and tar.