Backup and restore

Steve - Generally speaking you do not need to schedule a shutdown of the database to do a backup. I have tended toward using MySQL Administrator to create a backup which utilizes the mabackup command. Essentially you perform a dump of the mysql database to a text file and back that up. For the files end, I've been a fan of rdiff-backup but others may have other ideas. I suspect that if you do a little searching about how to backup a MySQL database you will find what you need. If you have any specific questions just let me know. Peace - Anthony