How often do you backup your site and or dedicated server?

[singloon]

Originally posted by Steve_S
Amen !

"Better safe than sorry"

Unfortunetly, hard drives don't page you or send you a nice email when they are failing.

maybe one day

[wsz]

Backup to hard drive of local computer:

I keep a full, current copy of each site here at all times, except for very rencent forums and very recent changes to ad-rotation script. The copy (including static HTML pages) is saved to CD every two weeks.


Backup of forums and changes to ad-rotation:

Downloaded to local machine (and added to full site copy, incluing static HTML pages) burned to CD every two weeks.


CD backups are currently kept on site, although I think that I should get a bank safe-deposit box soon (and maybe have a friend keep a copy at their house) in case of fire, etc.

[petertdavis]

My hosting company backs up customer data on our shared servers daily to a backup hard drive. Each of our shared servers has two hard drives, and does a back up during off hours. It seems to me that most hosting customers think that their host backs up their sites, but don't really know their host's policy on the subject. I still recommend customers to keep their own backups. Our backup drive does protect them in the case of a primary drive failure, but it doesn't protect them from a catastropic event that would destroy our servers, like a fire.

Back up your sites now folks!

[katcook]

My web host does the backups and they do a nice job.

Only when I make major updates to the database, do I manually do a dump. Thank God I do that.

Once I was testing a pretty new gadget that I thought my members would really appreciate. But it ended up deleting them and all their preferences. Yet like superhero, I was able to restore them to their former glory - from the dump.

[Ted S]

I was sitting around today thinking about the wonderful power outages in NY (not that I was anywhere near them) when I got an email from my host talking about how their server was up but varrious peers were down, etc... Of course that got me thinking... if my site went down and the data was lost, what would it take to rebuild? Sure I've got all the files for all my sites... all the images, scripts, etc... but the database info wasn't backed up anywhere. Needless to say I'm going to be backing it up far more often now!

[Steve_S]

funny, I was thinking the same thing last night but since my middle name is "redundancy" I had a good nights sleep.

Compliments of the vB GODS and a valuable solution for backups via crontab. Edit to suite your mood and good for any MySQL db.

----Begin:

#!/bin/sh

echo<<header "
################################################## ###
# ---> ATTENTION funky duck ONLY <--- #
# #
# ---> HAVE YOU DOWNLOADED YOUR BACKUPS? PLEASE! #
# #
# Makes multiple backups of my vB mysql data #
# Makes up to 7 backups and then starts over #
# test and run from root as----> sh filename #
# Archives are located in /bath/to/archives #
################################################## ###
"
header

# List all of the MySQL databases that you want to backup in here,
# each seperated by a space
databases="mydbname"

# Directory where you want the backup files to be placed
backupdir=/path/to/store/backups

# Directory where you want an extra backup placed at a specified interval
extra_backupdir=/path/to/store/backups

# MySQL dump command, use the full path name here
mysqldumpcmd=/usr/bin/mysqldump

# MySQL Username and password
userpassword="-uname -pyourpassword"

# MySQL dump options
dumpoptions=""

# Unix Commands
gzip="/bin/gzip -f"
uuencode="/usr/bin/uuencode"
mail="/usr/sbin"

# Maximum number of backups to keep around
max_backups=7

# Backup number at which an extra backup should be made (set to
# zero if you don't want extra backups)
extra_backup=0

# Send Incremental Backup? Would you like the more frequent backup emailed to you?
# Set to "y" if you do or n
sendincbackup="n"

# Send Extra Backup? Would you like the extra backup emailed to you?
# Set to "y" if you do
sendextrabackup="n"

subject="vB_Database"
mailto="webmaster@yourdomain.com"

################################################## ##############

DAY=$(/bin/date '+%Y.%m.%d-%H%M')

for database in $databases
do
sequence_file="${backupdir**/${database**.seq"
if [ -e "$sequence_file" ]
then
read backup_count < $sequence_file
else
echo 1 >> $sequence_file
backup_count=1
fi

# Dump out the database
echo "Working on ${database** database:"
echo -n "-> Dumping database............... "
$mysqldumpcmd $userpassword $dumpoptions $database >${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**
echo "done."

# Compress all of our backup files
echo -n "-> Compressing database dump...... "
$gzip ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**
echo "done."

# Make the additional backup
if [ "$backup_count" = "$extra_backup" ];
then
echo -n "-> Creating additional backup..... "
cp ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz
echo "done."
if [ $sendincbackup = "y" ];
then
echo -n "-> E-mailing additional backup.... "
#$uuencode ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz ${database**.sql.$DAY.gz > ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
#$mail -s "$subject : ${database**.sql.$DAY.gz" $mailto < ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
#rm ${extra_backupdir**/${database**.sql.$DAY.gz.uu
echo "done."
fi
fi

# Send the incremental backups via email
if [ $sendincbackup = "y" ];
then
echo -n "-> E-mailing incremental backup... "
# $uuencode ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz ${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz > ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
# $mail -s "$subject : ${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz" $mailto < ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
# rm ${backupdir**/${database**.sql.backup${backup_count**.gz.uu
echo "done."
fi

backup_count=`expr $backup_count + 1`
if [ "$backup_count" -gt "$max_backups" ];
then
backup_count=1
fi
echo $backup_count>$sequence_file
echo "Finished with ${database** database! --> funky duck, don't forget to download your archives. PLEASE!"
echo ""

done


----------------------end

[swifthost]

We do an incremental backup of all our servers on a daily basis. The files are backed up to a remote server for redundancy. Since this backup does not include Windows permisssions, we also run a scheduled windows backup job every night.

Regards,
Vish Nathan
http://www.swifthost.com

[fawh]

I backup my site every time I do an update.

[Larwee]

Wow! This is really a very old thread. But, I'll also respond since it has been brought back to life.

I do back of of each update as it is made. Then the entire site is back up each day.

I don't like to take chances so I actually quadruple backup. This is in addition to the backup done by my host.

I have two copies. My other two back up copies are kept at two different locations in different parts of town.

While I might carry things to an extreme. Some people don't back up at all and find themselves in a terrible jam when something goes wrong. It pays to back up.

[CPMNewbie]

I have an automated daily backup to backup crucial files and folders.