System backup a manual approach
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1577
I found the best little article on Linux backups on wiki.ArchLinux.org. It summarizes what needs to be backed up and what to exclude very well.
This article has a nice list of what to backup and why.
There is also FSArchiver which is said to make a good live backup:
And that article references SystemRescueCD for PSE network boot and restore
Here’s an article describing how to manage a windows or linux server that is in a datacenter remotely, from your office
Also, do a search on this site for backups, I did write some things a few years ago
This comment http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/41399/system-image-of-running-debian-system seems relevant:
I have tried so much backup and restore software and was never happy. This is what I do now: I have a second Debian installed on a spare computer (same MB, NIC card, etc). Every evening I rsync from machine A to machine B. There are some files that I hold back (/etc/network/interfaces, /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname) since I don’t want conflicts of the two running systems. Actually, I do have copies of them in another folder. I also disable some services that I don’t need to run on machine B (postfix, mysql, etc). I have a script written on machine B that will basically turn it into machine A (replace those files that I held back), restart the NIC and enable the services that were disabled. Of course machine A needs to be off when I run the script or there will be havoc. I test machine B monthly by turning off machine A, running the script, and doing some tests to make sure it is up to date and running properly. It works like a charm!