Best Way To Backup A Website?

Hey all, was told in another thread that it is a good idea to back up a website every day/week.

I'm wondering what the best way to do this is.

At the moment my site is using SQL and html files(The database is just for forums.)

So would I just need to ensure I have a current copy of my .html files on my pc, and go into my database through trap's control panel and export, or is there a better way?

I remember having a lot of issues in the past when it came to transferring forum databases from one host to another.

Also, let's say I take phpbb's database from username (rpgsearcherz_rpgsearcherz) and database name (rpgsearcherz_rpgsearcherz) and transferred over to...(trap_trap) and (trap_trap) would I need to change anything in the databases themselves, or would I just need to change phpbb's directory information to point to the new server/username/database instead of the old one?

Thanks in advance!

That is sort of a two part question you have going there.

First Question:
Backing-up an Account is best done in the Cpanel. Select the Backup Wizard and then follow the steps 1 to 3. Assuming that you make the default selections, a full Account Back-up will soon be available in your Account File structure. The compressed file will have a name that includes the date-time-accountname.tar.gz (example: backup-10.16.2008_21-55-30_jlhaslip.tar.gz). Simply select the file in the File Manager and download it onto your PC. I then move the file to a Thumbdrive for long-term storage. You can then unpack that file into a directory on your PC and the html (or whatever) are then available for inspection locally. if you have a localhost server such as XAMPP running, the php files can then be tested and the databases recreated so that you have a full copy, however, you will nedd to modify all of the configuation file since the DB names and paths are usually different from the Web Host.

Second Question:
Depends. Some Forum Software contain the Configuration information inside their DB as a "registry" table. I am not familiar with phpbb3, so I can't comment specifically on that software. Phpmyadmin SQL backups should only be trusted as a method to restore the specific Database on the same servers. Again, it will depend on the contents of the Database and the software's method of storing the configuration information.

Got it, thanks a lot for that information.

I really haven't done that much experimenting with Cpanel yet - mostly just doing basic things like ftp and sql accounts.

I guess it'd be a good idea to better explore all of the different options there and see what does what.


As confirmation though, using the cpanel backup will back up EVERYTHING? Like including databases, every file, etc. And if so, as long as I stay on Trap17 would I be able to use that to do a full replacement? Meaning...If I was to delete some pages/screw up my database I could use that backup to completely restore everything that was there before(at the time the backup was actually made)?

Sorry for all of the questions, but this is very new to me and I like getting thorough understandings before screwing things up,

Yes, it stores all of the files you have uploaded/created, AND the account files inside your Account. I am just now unpacking the compressed tar.gz file to see if the Databases are in there, too. I will post back here when I get a chance to figure out all the files that are there and whether the DB's are included. Might take a while since I am dealing with a fairly large tar.gz file to unpack onto the thumbdrive, which is pretty slow.

*edit*

Indeed, there is a folder that contains SQL files of all the databases in my account. you would be able to restore all the database tables and their contents from the SQL files, as well as all the settings for the Account. This is definitely the way to go.

Changing the Package? (upgrading to v3.0)
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Order a Package at ComputingHost.com with the SAME-DOMAIN(xxx.trap17.com or your existing owned domain name)
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Change the name of your Website -> helps to be hosted on any of our servers.
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I actually had a full backup of my site lying around in my account and poked around a bit and a full back up does have a couple of your MySQL, but my suggestion and of course its requirement is to have two separate backups of your hosting. As for the for the time frame to make these back ups you want your hosting on a weekly and your MySQL on a daily, especially if your a blogger. Now you can cut out the manual work by setting up cron jobs to do this for you, but I since I lack the experience of setting up crons you have to do some searching. I am not sure but I think trap17 has a few topics on it but again not to sure though since those topics would most likely be buried somewhere in the forums.

Also when backing up MySQL you can do it in phpMyAdmin through the export import options within phpMyAdmin, even though both back up options are good, I would recommend it doing the backs up through phpMyAdmin if you haven't set up a cron job since you have quite a few more options on how you want you backup to be.

Cpanel is the best way of backing up all of your site as well as databases and configuration. Backups can be created then downloaded through the backup manager in cpanel. It can also create encrypted backups, for security.
Another way of backing up, if you just want the files, rather that databases ad configuration, is just to use your FTP, just copy all the files off,ad paste them onto your own computer or another location.

Depending on the content of the website, it may be a good idea to encrypt your backups, (Cpanel will do this) as if someone were to obtain an unencrypted copy of your password database, all of your users accounts are insecure!

You should not have any problems importing the backend for SQL. What forum software are you using? From my experience, all I need to do is to install the same version of the forum software at the new server, then go to the phpmyadmin and do the import. The new forum works just as fine. I am using phpbb. As for the static, pages, guess you have to do the ftp way.

Hi!

I've got a WordPress blog (on another host) and I back it up using phpMyAdmin and an FTP client. I'm still getting started with the WordPress blog I have here at Trap17, so I'm not backing up my data just yet. Perhaps in another month or so.

Regards,
Nitin Reddy

You can use biterscripting ( http://www.biterscripting.com ) to copy or download web pages. For example, the following command



will copy this web page to file C:/Backup/trap17.html .

Patrick