There are two types of data to backup: application files (e.g. the files in /opt/otrs), and the data stored in the database.

To simplify backups, the script scripts/backup.pl is included with every OTRS installation. It can be run to backup all important data (see Script below).

linux:/opt/otrs# cd scripts/
linux:/opt/otrs/scripts# ./backup.pl --help
backup.pl <Revision 1.1> - backup script
Copyright (c) 2001-2005 Martin Edenhofer <[email protected]>
usage: backup.pl -d /data_backup/ [-c bzip2|gzip] [-r 30] [-t nofullbackup]
linux:/opt/otrs/scripts#

Script: Getting help about the OTRS backup mechanism.

Execute the command specified in the script below to create a backup:

linux:/opt/otrs/scripts# ./backup.pl -d /backup/
Backup /backup//2010-09-07_14-28/Config.tar.gz ... done
Backup /backup//2010-09-07_14-28/Application.tar.gz ... done
Dump MySQL rdbms ... done
Compress SQL-file... done
linux:/opt/otrs/scripts#

Script: Creating a backup.

All data was stored in the directory /backup/2010-09-07_14-28/ (see Script below). Additionally, the data was saved into a .tar.gz file.

linux:/opt/otrs/scripts# ls /backup/2010-09-07_14-28/
Application.tar.gz  Config.tar.gz  DatabaseBackup.sql.gz
linux:/opt/otrs/scripts#

Script: Checking the backup files.