Proper Backup Procedures

[tmotley]

I have never been able to get autobackups to work but have also never had to restore from a manual backup so I'm quite green when it comes to this.

I'd like to know the safest procedure to backup my site that will make sure I have a backup that is totally restorable.

Here are all the things I have at my disposal.

[list type=decimal][*]Backup from within phpbb (Never used this.)
[*]Vdeck Backups - can simply select database by name and it creates a downloadable file ending in .tar.gz (Have used thisbut I'm not sure about settings since it doesn't have any changeable ones.) {This area of Vdeck also provides for full site backups.}
[*]Vdeck CRON jobs - I have no idea how to use this. To create a CRON job it only has the following options: job name, script path, hour, day, email
[*]phpmyadmin 2.7.0-pl2 - I've been selecting my database, selecting all tables, SQL, left SQL settings for data and structure alone (?), save as file, gzipped compression. (Have used this but I don't know if the default settings will backup everything correctly.)
[*]mysqldumper - I've properly installed this and created a backup of my site database by selecting Backup, checked box for Select Tables, selected all tables, and click to backup. It created a 3.37 MB sql.gz backup for my site that has 15.97 MB database. Does that sound right?[/list]

What I'd like to know is this: Which method provides the best backup or is it a matter of personal preference?

[Unregistered]

ok am gonna keep an eye over this topic <img>

[tmotley]

Perhaps if I phrased it like:

What method and settings do you use to make backups of your Integramod database?

[found it]

I use mysqldumber witout clicking on the select table option and it works fine....I am in the process of seeing if I can get cron to work with it...

[tmotley]

So mysqldumper automatically selects all tables and I should use Select Tables only if I want to backup on certain ones? That'll save a few clicks.

I'm trying to find a simple and quick method that still makes restorable backups. So I assume you would choose mysqldumper?

[Dragonsys]

as long as you are getting all the tables and the data, then you are good, for the DB. Any of those tools should work fine, just which ever one you like the best.

Don;t forget to backup all the files as well, this will give you a complete system backup.

[Apocal]

I have had a lot of experience with back up procedures and ensuring that my files and systems are in good shape. As I am a guild master, I have a lot of experience with mods getting pissed and my forums getting deleted. Over the years it's happened before.

You have some really good ways of backing up your system at your disposal. There are a few questions that you need to ask yourself when considering which backup options are correct for you. First and foremost you must decide how important it is for your backups to be of the latest form (ie how long of an information could you afford to lose). There have been cases where host's back up procedures have not gone correctly which would result in the loss of data. If you are backing up your own data then this is even more important. In deciding this information, you will know about how often you will want to back up your data. You will also have to consider cpu processing and bandwith into this. It is a good idea to back up your files every week, even better every day. It all depends on what you have in there.

If your files are not changing that often then a good format is to back up only the files which are being changed and modified. Normally this in the place of the images and downloads that the users upload. Things of that nature. You can create a cron to do this for you such that it will download the files and either send them to an email address or to put them in a separate directory. The thing that I suggest is to have a variety of different back up solutions to fit your needs.

For example... have a full system file as well as a full database download sent to your email address once every week.

Have 8 files on your server. The first file is a full back up and is copied at the same time that you send the file off to yourself (the once a week deal). The other files you could name by the day. Each file is set up through the cron to only get the files that have been modified. On the seventh day the process repeats. When you do such make it such that the files are overwritten upon writing instead of appended.

I suggest using a database dump script to download your files. Generally these things are not very big, but I would still suggest doing the same process as before. Once a week send it to yourself, otherwise send it to the server.

There are a plethora of different bodies of information on cron jobs and things of that nature. Your biggest tool that you can use is your cron tab, which you can do literally everything from. You can even set up times to run .php scripts.

Cheers,

-Rich

Edit: btw yes mysql dumper is great <img>