XF 2.1 Backing Up XF

[CrazyChef]

I find it very odd that XF doesn't have an internal backup feature. Or am I missing something? Preferably to an external source, such as Backblaze.

 

[Mendalla]

It would only get used if someone's host didn't provide proper backup, I imagine. My site backs up automatically every morning and I have easy access to those backups. Also, an internal backup would not pick up other parts of the site, e.g. if you also run a WordPress site for blogging. An external, server/host backup will pick up everything so would still be the preferred solution. I, for instance, have two copies of my site (a live and a dev) each with its own db, so an external backup gets that all in one swoop.

That said, there is at least one add-on for doing backups of your databases.

XF2 [8WR] Database Backup

NOTICE: This addon uses a lot of third party vendor packages and it can be hard to work out compatibility. As of now, if you want to use this package with XF2.3, you must be running PHP8. If you want to run this package using a previous version...

xenforo.com

 

[Rhody]

We do it at the server level.

I set a CRON to do ours twice daily, and then we auto download it off site twice daily. (in addition to 2 or 3 other backups done by the ISP) It keeps a daily history backup that overwrites every 10 days. We have another that generates a tar and downloads that.

 

[CrazyChef]

We do it at the server level.

I set a CRON to do ours twice daily, and then we auto download it off site twice daily. (in addition to 2 or 3 other backups done by the ISP) It keeps a daily history backup that overwrites every 10 days. We have another that generates a tar and downloads that.

I would like to do this, but am not familiar enough with the process to use it.

 

[briansol]

do you have a control panel at the host? often theres a setting in there.

i use cpanel's backup and offload to S3 once a day

 

[CrazyChef]

do you have a control panel at the host? often theres a setting in there.

i use cpanel's backup and offload to S3 once a day

No unfortunately. I have Sitegrounds new interface with"Site Tools" instead of cPanel. But it does have a section for cron jobs.

 

[CrazyChef]

We do it at the server level.

I set a CRON to do ours twice daily, and then we auto download it off site twice daily. (in addition to 2 or 3 other backups done by the ISP) It keeps a daily history backup that overwrites every 10 days. We have another that generates a tar and downloads that.

Could you let me know how this is done?

 

[Rhody]

Creating the backup can be as easy as adding a new cron job in the above screen you showed, to run at 2:55am (example) with something like:

(uncompressed)
mysqldump --opt --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -u'ADMINACCT' -p'PASSWORD' xenforo > /var/www/html/MYDOMAIN/mysql_backups/xenforo-backup-$(date +\%F).sql

(compressed)
mysqldump --opt --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -u'ADMINACCT' -p'PASSWORD' xenforo | gzip -c > /var/www/html/MYDOMAIN/mysql_backups/xenforo-backup-$(date +\%F).sql.gz

ADMINACCT = your admin login account name
PASSWORD = your admin password
MYDOMAIN = domain where database operates

or a fancier example for backup with short day of the week for 7 day rotation:
/bin/mysqldump --opt --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -u"MYSERVERUSERNAME-HERE" -p"MYSERVERPW-HERE" DATABASE_NAME > /home/ACCTNAME/back/xf-bkup-$(date +\%a).sql

This last one will store 7 backups on your server, named by the day of the week, so make sure you have room. You can put them in a folder not reachable from your website. (EX: BACK) If you want it off site, there are several ways. Some send it off to s3, some download it to a local linux server at home, some use an old windows program like FTPSYNCH go ftp in and grab it a few minutes after the cron runs daily.

You could also have it run a second cron to make a TAR file of the site contents, with something like:

tar -cf /home/ACCTNAME/back/xf_files.tar /home/ACCTNAME/public_html/

I hope this is useful, to get you started.

 

[Onlyme]

Write a simple script to backup your database and files (rsync).

Use the crontab if you want it automated.