posted 14 years ago
There are several Unix archive utilities. Most common is tar, but there's also a Linux ZIP, and cpio.
I do nightly backups using tar. The actual scheduling is done by the cron utility.
The vixie cron popular on Linux is set up with a set of script folders, including /etc/cron.daily and /etc/cron.weekly, where you can place executable scripts and they will run automatically. If you prefer a different scheduling arrangement, you can add entries to the /etc/crontab file.
Also, for non-system usage, each user account can have its own crontab. The format is slightly different from the system crontab.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.