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I have a Ubuntu 16.04 as my webserver, now that i have everything ready and working is it possible to create some sort of image/backup/clone so that if i mess something up or want to test new versions that i can restore to this current state?

Example 1, i clean install Ubuntu 17.10 for testing, and after that i will go back to the system 16.04 with all settings/config i have now running.

Example 2, my VPS gets broken or crashes, i can reinstall Ubuntu again but then also need to configure all partitions settings etc again. Is it possible on a clean install to use some sort of iso/clone that sets back my current runnig system over the fresh install?

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  • Actually, I think you better use virtualbox. It's free, you can have several at once, and you can use snapshots.
    – davidbaumann
    Jan 29, 2018 at 13:50

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That's not the way I would proceed.

I would

  • Take note of all config files I edit.
  • Create a script to automate that edit or to copy the edit over to a backup location. I would store these ON the server AND remotely (the 1st to quickly be able to restore a mistake; the 2nd in case of a reinstall).
  • Restoring a backup = clean install + restore edited files.

You should do this for all the different versions: using settings on 1 version of Ubuntu and then copy them over to another release is generally a bad idea. That would not take into account that releases change how they work. MySQL, as an example, drops settings in between releases and uses different setups between releases. You can not use all the different settings for MySQL 5.7 on MySQL 5.6 or on MySQL 5.5.

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  • Or in case of a reinstall to fast setup all the users/ftp settings/website configs/php setups etc. Is There an easy way to backup and restore that? Like php is configured in multiple folder locations i can't just backup some folders and restore them that wil not work
    – Rick
    Jan 29, 2018 at 18:12
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Like with windows, you can create a full ISO of your current installed system. Then from an empty harddrive you can just 'install' that iso and every think is back as it was, is there no program that does that for the Server?

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