Backup / File System / images

[erich37]

I have just found out that XenForo-software is saving all images (Avatar-images, image-attachments in threads) not in the "MySQL-database", but in the "File-system".

I am currently doing an automatic backup of the "MySQL-database" once per week via a Cronjob and save it to another server and also send the database-backup to my E-mail.


Since the images (Avatar-images, image-attachments in threads) are not being stored in the "MySQL-databse" but in the "File-system", my images are currently not being backed-up.



The big question is:
how do I perform a backup of the images (Avatar-images, image-attachments in threads) ?
I would like to create weekly backups of my "Files" as well.

Is there a script available which can automatically backup the "File-system" ?
How to do such a backup properly ?


Appreciate your tips and help!


Many thanks

 

[Paul B]

You can use an FTP program or if you have shell access, something like this to zip the contents, which will make downloading a lot quicker:

Zip Data Directory
tar -czf data_$(date +%d.%m.%y).tar.gz /path/to/data

Zip Internal Data Directory
tar -czf internal_data_$(date +%d.%m.%y).tar.gz /path/to/internal_data

And you only just found this out now? After three years?

 

[erich37]

hmmm

well, I do not want to "manually" perform the backup by transfering files via FTP back and forth.


I would like to install some "script" which creates a backup of all files "automagically" once per week.


Maybe somebody is doing this already and has a guide of which script to use, etc. ?

 

[Paul B]

You can adapt this to make it work for those directories: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/auto-database-backup-script.1664/

 

[Jeremy]

You should be able to convert the above to a script and set it up to run automatically.

 

[erich37]

it seems everybody is just doing a backup of their "MySQL database", but not of their "File system" ?

So when your server crashes, all image-attachments in the Forums and Avatar-images are gone ?



I am actually wondering why the "images" are not in the "database" but in a file-system ?
Maybe because of better performance ? Hmmm....

Should I somehow move the "images & files" into the "MySQL database" and then make a backup of the database ?


Sorry, I have no clue about this at all..... just wondering how to do all that stuff.

 

[Jeremy]

XenForo doesn't support images in the database at this time.

 

[Paul B]

I back mine up regularly.

There is no option to store files in the database.

 

[TPerry]

it seems everybody is just doing a backup of their "MySQL database", but not of their "File system" ?

My Name is Nobody then I guess. <you'd have to have seen the movie>
I have a script on my servers that run as a CRON job and do a dump of the database, archive the structure of my forum(s) up then sends them to the other servers. Once every 3 days I have a CRON job on my MAC that scp's those files pertaining to the three forums over to my local computer - then I send them out to the two RAID servers I have here at the house.

 

[erich37]

do you know of a script or would you be able to recommend any specific script which I could use to backup my "Files" ?

Many thanks!

 

[Chris D]

Maybe this: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/xenforo-backup-shell-script.787/

 

[Jeremy]

Paul posted a script above that should be editable with his commands above to function to back up files. I'm sure Matt can help you if you ask nicely.

 

[MattW]

I much prefer to use rsync to back up the forum files (especially when you have 13GB of attachments in the /data/ directory!). The script I have backs up the whole public_html folder.

#!/bin/bash
## Matt's script to copy sites to home NAS

# Location to store backups...
NAS_HOST="URL/IP"
NAS_PORT="SSH PORT"
NAS_USER="root"
NAS_FORUM="/mnt/soho_storage/samba/shares/Matt/Websites/Z22SE.co.uk"

# Rsync options...
OPTS="-aruvPz
      --compress-level=9
      --itemize-changes
      --delete
      --human-readable
      --stats"

LOCAL_FORUM="/home/z22se/public_html/"

# Display greeter...
echo "Backing up home directory to NAS..."
echo ""

# Echo command to run...
echo /usr/bin/rsync -e "ssh -p ${NAS_PORT}" $OPTS $LOCAL_FORUM $NAS_USER@$NAS_HOST:$NAS_FORUM
echo ""
sleep 5

# now the actual transfer
/usr/bin/rsync -e "ssh -p ${NAS_PORT}" $OPTS $LOCAL_FORUM $NAS_USER@$NAS_HOST:$NAS_FORUM

 

[Floren]

how do I perform a backup of the images (Avatar-images, image-attachments in threads)?

rsync.

 

[erich37]

I much prefer to use rsync to back up the forum files (especially when you have 13GB of attachments in the /data/ directory!). The script I have backs up the whole public_html folder.

so "rsync" is a separate script which I can download somewhere on the internet or is this "rsync" included in your backup-script ?

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/auto-database-backup-script.47932/


Many thanks!

 

[MattW]

so "rsync" is a separate script which I can download somewhere on the internet or is this "rsync" included in your backup-script ?

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/auto-database-backup-script.47932/


Many thanks!

rsync is an application that you need to install on your server. It runs over the SSH protocol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync