Tar a directory and all subdirectories

Create the tar backup file

tar -zcvf /var/www/mybackup.tar.gz /var/www/mysite

Test the tar file

gunzip -t mybackup.tar.gz

To copy it to another server

scp mybackup.tar.gz user@servername:/var/www

To extract it

tar -xvzf mybackup.tar.gz

To backup the mysql database

mysqldump -udbusername -p dbname > dbname.sql

To import the sql

mysql -udbusername -p dbname < dbname.sql