The recommended backup strategy for a production sit is to use an automated script which first backs up the database to a file in /var/lib/aolserver/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME/database-backup and then backs up all of /var/lib/aolserver/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME to a single zip file, and then copies that zip file to another computer.
Make sure that the manual backup process described above works.
Customize the default backup script. Edit /var/lib/aolserver/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME/etc/backup.sh with your specific parameters.
Make sure the file is executable:
chmod +x backup.sh
Set this file to run automatically by adding a line to root's crontab. (Typically, with export EDITOR=emacs; crontab -e.) This example runs the backup script at 1:30 am every day.
30 1 * * * * sh /var/lib/aolserver/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME/etc/backup.sh