Do a complete backup with rsync of a linux server

Create a exclude file: “exclude.rsync” with content:

/proc
/sys
/dev
/etc/udev
/etc/network
/boot
/etc/mtab
/etc/fstab
/var/swapfile
/lost+found

Create a file: /etc/rsyncd.conf on the server:

uid = 0
gid = 0
use chroot = no
max connections = 4
syslog facility = local5
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid
munge symlinks = no
[sys]
path = /
comment = ftp area
allow from = your.ip.address
read only = yes

Start rsync with these options: (substitute the words in capitals with the appropriate values)

rsync -avzRH --exclude-from=exclude.rsync rsync://SERVER_NAME_OR_IP:/sys TARGET_FOLDER