How can I backup a website? (Unix server)

Does a website using a database, need to be shut down when a backup is being made? (assuming you are not using replication)?

[Edit]

Apologies about the brevity of the question. I have provided more details below:

• OS: Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04 LTS)
• web application framework: Symfony (PHP web framework)
• databases: mysql (v5.1) AND postgresql (v 8.4)

Additional files that need to be backed up:

1. configuration files (php.ini, httpd.conf etc)
2. data files in specific folders
3. cron jobs (bash scripts, PHP scripts, Python scripts, Ruby scripts)

more specific information that may be relevant:

I am running the site on a private virtual server (so I have root access), on a machine hosted on Linode.

From serverfault stickman

• It depends on your database. Mysql has possibilities to do hot dumps if you use the right database engine.

  From txwikinger

• Use mysqldump to back up the mySQL database.

  Use pg_dumpall to back up the postgres database.

  Use rsync to back up the website files.

  You don't need to shutdown the database whilst making the back-up, though depending on the underlying engine used, tables may be locked whilst the dump is running.

  churnd : A good script that uses mysqldump: AutoMySQLBackup, http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/
  From Pete