Simplify Backups?

[MatthewSchenker]

Good Morning,
Like everyone else here, I think about what might happen if my site went down for some reason.  How would I get it back up running again?

Currently, I back up my SMF sites through the "Maintenance" area of SMF; I use FTP to make a full copy of my folders.  I also see several backup options in cPanel, but I am never sure which one to use.  I also see that Charlottezweb does automatic backups.  Are these good enough?

In short, I'm confused about backing up.  I want to understand this now, not when I actually have an emergency!

OK, a simple question: what backup method should I use to make sure I can restore my site in the case of an emergency?

Let me take this opportunity to say again how terrific Jason is and what a great service he offers here!

Thanks,
Matthew

[Jason]

Hi Matthew,

I'll follow up on this thread tomorrow.

[MatthewSchenker]

Jason,
Thanks, and I look forward to your reply.  This is an important subject.
Matthew

[Jason]

There's not necessarily a "right or wrong" way to do this but I can tell you the way I look at it...

1.  I *ALWAYS* backup any files and databases before I do any sort of edits, upgrades, modifications, etc. to them.  ALWAYS. 

2.  I setup a cron job to automatically backup my databases daily to a folder in my account (outside of public_html).  That assures you of having a backup to restore if something breaks one day without the loss of too much data.

3.  I try to backup a full copy of all my webfiles and databases to my local pc about every week or so whenever I haven't backed them up from step 1. above. 

Those are some best practices I personally follow but whatever you want to do is up to you and how important the data is.

That being said, the server backs up all data in your accounts daily to a secondary harddrive in the same server.  Once or twice a week (depends on the server), a full backup is also copied to a remote storage server in case something catastophic happened to the server and both drives.

I provide these backups as a "value-add" but state throughout the forum a lot that they are not guaranteed options you should rely on rather than doing your own backups.  In other words, they're there if we need them and they're generally reliable but they should not be a substitute for doing your own backups.

To comment on SMF's backup utility -- I'm not a big fan.  I've had bad luck with it on several separate account moves I've done for clients so I wouldn't personally use that as my way of backing them up.  Rather, I'd use phpmyadmin (if the database filesize is manageable) or I'd back them up from shell or a backup script.

To summarize what I think you're asking, I would recommend setting up a cron job in your cpanel to backup your database once a day to a folder somewhere *outside* of your public_html folder.  Then whenever you wanted to back everything up, you could ftp down that folder along with your public_html folder and that would contain all your webfiles.   

Here are a few threads that may help: 
 
http://www.charlottezweb.com/forums/index.php?topic=455.0
http://www.charlottezweb.com/forums/index.php?topic=388.0
http://www.charlottezweb.com/forums/index.php?topic=405.0

Does that help?

[MatthewSchenker]

Jason,
Thanks for the post, but I have to admit I am still really confused.  I've been using the SMF feature, so I'm kind of upset to hear it's not reliable.  I've looked at the cPanel options, but none of them make sense to me.

I see where to run a cron job in cPanel, but I don't get how to set it up.  What "command" do I enter to back up my whole site?

Thanks,
Matthew

[Jason]

I've been using the SMF feature, so I'm kind of upset to hear it's not reliable.  I've looked at the cPanel options, but none of them make sense to me.

phpMyAdmin probably won't make sense without reading a bit about it but it's pretty easy once you know how.

I'm not saying the smf utility isn't reliable it's just not the way I personally trust.  I haven't had great luck with it a few times I tried it.  I also have to manage sites with databases way to big too be handled by a http backup option. 

I see where to run a cron job in cPanel, but I don't get how to set it up.  What "command" do I enter to back up my whole site?

You could use the cron job to backup your database.

This thread discusses it:  http://www.charlottezweb.com/forums/index.php?topic=405.0

You could have cpanel create a full backup under the "backups" link.

[MatthewSchenker]

Jason,
I appreciate your help on this.  I don't understand why backing up is such a confusing subject.

It sounds like the SMF option might be good enough, since I'm only talking about a relatively small site.

You could use the cron job to backup your database.
This thread discusses it:  http://www.charlottezweb.com/forums/index.php?topic=405.0

OK, I'm sure I'm missing something really obvious, but after reading that thread a couple of times I still don't get a sense of how to do a reliable backup with a cron job.

You could have cpanel create a full backup under the "backups" link.

Yes, I like the way the cPanel option is designed, but again the options are really confusing.  This is what led me to start this discussion:

• Should I do a "System Backup"?  What is that?
• Doing a "Partial Backup" doesn't sound good enough.
• I like the sound of a "Full Backup," but cPanel displays this message: "Full backups can only be used for moving your account to another server or keeping a local copy of your account."  I assume I need something that I can use to restore the site in the case of an emergency?

Still confused.

Matthew

[Jason]

OK, I'm sure I'm missing something really obvious, but after reading that thread a couple of times I still don't get a sense of how to do a reliable backup with a cron job.

1.  Create a folder outside of public_html.  In other words, right when you connect to your account, before you go into public_html, create a folder there.
2.  Setup a cron job using the syntax in that thread above:

mysqldump -uDBUSERNAME -pDBUSERNAMEPASSWORD DB_NAME > /home/CPANELUSERNAME/BACKUPFOLDER/BACKUPFILENAME.sql

3.  Based on how you set it, it will backup your database only automatically to the folder location.  (You have to substitute the capitalized values above for your own specific database and folder settings.  (You can obtain those values from SMF's Settings.php file if you don't know them)

Yes, I like the way the cPanel option is designed, but again the options are really confusing.  This is what led me to start this discussion:

• Should I do a "System Backup"?  What is that?
• Doing a "Partial Backup" doesn't sound good enough.
• I like the sound of a "Full Backup," but cPanel displays this message: "Full backups can only be used for moving your account to another server or keeping a local copy of your account."  I assume I need something that I can use to restore the site in the case of an emergency?

A system backup should allow you to get to the automated backups of your account that are done each night.  However, if you're logging into cpanel to do a backup, you might as well create a new one on the spot so it's the most recent.

A full backup will create a giant zipped file (.tar) in the root of you account space which you can then backup to your pc via ftp.  As long as you have a program capable of opening a tarball, you're fine.  Most programs like winrar, winzip (i believe), and even the windows built-in zip handler should open those files.  That tarball will have *everything* for your account in it -- files, databases, email, logs, etc...

[MatthewSchenker]

Jason,
So if I do a "full backup" through cPanel, then save that file to my local hard drive, I would be able to restore my forum in an emergency?

Should I ignore that stuff about only being used for moving the account and keeping a local copy?

Matthew

[Jason]

Yes, you could restore it.  It contains your sql databases in a folder called "mysql" and your webfiles are located in "homedir."

Of course, the forum would only be as current as the backup date.  That's why it's best to set a cron job to automated the backup process for your database.

[MatthewSchenker]

Yes, you could restore it.  It contains your sql databases in a folder called "mysql" and your webfiles are located in "homedir."

Thanks for helping me understand this.  From now on, I'll use the "full backup" feature in cPanel instead of the SMF function.  It's fairly easy to do.

Of course, the forum would only be as current as the backup date.  That's why it's best to set a cron job to automated the backup process for your database.

Yes, but the commands still don't make sense to me.  For now, I suppose I'll have to do a manual backup.

Matthew

[Jason]

Yes, but the commands still don't make sense to me.  For now, I suppose I'll have to do a manual backup.

What do you need help with?  You basically just cut/paste that command into the cron line and change the capitalized values to match what your SMF forum is using for connection settings.  (You can get those settings from SMF's Settings.php file).

If you want to open a ticket I can set this up for you.

mysqldump -uDBUSERNAME -pDBUSERNAMEPASSWORD DB_NAME > /home/CPANELUSERNAME/BACKUPFOLDER/BACKUPFILENAME.sql

And I guess the "quote" feature on this new beta of SMF isn't working presently 

[MatthewSchenker]

Jason,
OK, I'm piecing this together.

My confusion can be summarized with these questions:

• I want the cron job to occur every day at midnight, so I set it for "0=12AM/Midnight" in the "Hour(s)" menu.  Then I set it for "Every Day" in the "Day(s)" menu.  But what am I supposed to set in the "Minute," "Month," and "Weekday" menus?  These don't make much sense.
• Is there a way to output a backup of my entire domain?  Do I have to back up each forum separately with its own cron job, since they each have their own database?
• It asks for an e-mail address "where output from commands run via crontab will be sent."  Does this mean it will send the actual sql file(s) to my e-mail address, or just a summary of the event?  These files are pretty large, so I'm not sure I want them clogging my e-mail.

Matthew

[MatthewSchenker]

I ran a test of this function and received the following message in my e-mail in box:

Code Select Expand

/bin/sh: /Backups/SMFTestBackup.sql: No such file or directory

I created a folder called "Backups" and placed it in the home directory, so it looks like this:

Code Select Expand

/Backups/

The last part of the cron job command (/BACKUPFOLDER/BACKUPFILENAME.sql) looks like this:

Code Select Expand

/Backups/SMFTestBackup.sql

Looks the same to me.  What am I doing wrong?

Matthew

[Jason]

Hi Matthew,

I fixed your paths to be server based.  (I didn't have that complete in the examples above).

The paths based on your folder structure above should be: 

/home/CPANELUSERNAME/Backups/BACKUPNAME.sql

Check after midnight tonight to confirm that one runs.  I noticed you have one set for midnight and another set for 1pm.

I removed the email address but that should send you any errors that your cron produces like your example above.

To answer your questions above:

    1 I want the cron job to occur every day at midnight, so I set it for "0=12AM/Midnight" in the "Hour(s)" menu.  Then I set it for "Every Day" in the "Day(s)" menu.  But what am I supposed to set in the "Minute," "Month," and "Weekday" menus?  These don't make much sense.
    2 Is there a way to output a backup of my entire domain?  Do I have to back up each forum separately with its own cron job, since they each have their own database?
    3 It asks for an e-mail address "where output from commands run via crontab will be sent."  Does this mean it will send the actual sql file(s) to my e-mail address, or just a summary of the event?  These files are pretty large, so I'm not sure I want them clogging my e-mail.

1.  You can leave the minute, month and weekday fields blank if you want it to run daily.  If you want it to run at more specific times, i.e. on a specific day of the week, week of the month or at a specific minute within an hour, you would populate those other fields.  In other words, you could technically have the backups run at 9:28pm every Tuesday only if you wanted to get that specific.

2.  I don't believe you have the access level to backup your full account by cron but it's something we could look into.  I just backup my forums individually by database as you said.

3.  See answer above.

Hope that helps!