It is often inefficient to fire up a tape drive whenever you need to back up files or restore a backup. The Rsync tool pushes critical files to a second computer, where you can access them easily.

Your web hoster is fine with serving up HTML, but when it comes to backing up a simple MySQL database, you are often on your own. Or are you?

Data always seems to get lost at exactly the wrong moment, but the right backup strategy can help you restore those missing files.

The principle behind Rsnapshot is nothing new: use Rsync and SSH to back up files to another computer. What sets Rsnapshot apart is its simple setup and its rich collection of features.