XF 2.4 general discussion, feedback, complaints, random off topic posts, etc.

[Paul B]

It's a comprehensive and robust backup system, developed independently from XF.

It's always been there, we just recently exposed it in the ACP so Cloud customers have more control over it.

 

[FTL]

It's a comprehensive and robust backup system, developed independently from XF.

Indeed, when I used to run the site on AWS, my backups were implemented using the AWS backup features. I had one for the XF server and one for the database and they worked really well.

 

[smallwheels]

Nope. It's not the job of a (web) application to provide backup funcationality and quite frankly, a PHP web app running on a shared server as a normal user account can't properly do that anyway.

Depends from how you define "properly". The backup script addon by 8way run does the job pretty well and obviously runs with the user rights the application has. Should not need more rights anyway as all files to backup are accessible by the webserver user (including the database, using the credentials tied in XF).

If I ran a complete server on bare metal or in a VM I would agree with your statement that there was a more comprehensive backup solution needed (and those are available in many flavors). If I only run XF on a shared host as my only application and XF has to a degree non-professional IT guys (in the sense as "no professional admins") as target group (which clearly is the case, given the huge amount of hobbyist forums) a built in backup is in my eyes almost a mandatory feature. Even for a pro something worth using in a "hobby" situation.

 

[smallwheels]

I can just imagine the ****storm if XF had a backup function and the backup was corrupt resulting in a loss of content or the site.

No thanks.

So you don't trust the devs of your own company to create a reliable backup solution for an application they wrote themselves? That is kind of weird. Even weirder is that you prefer to leave customers w/o backup - as many of them simply don't have the abilities and the awareness to find and configure (let alone write) an independent solution. The exact opposite of caring for customer needs I'd say and really a disappointing attitude in my eyes.

Obviously, if you configure a backup solution wrong it won't deliver working results. No reason to blame XF in such a case. Other than that it is no rocket science to backup something like XF if you are somewhat familiar with environments like that.

 

[Jeremy P]

That's kind of the thing though, the limitations of shared hosting environments make web-based backup utilities more likely to fail since backups tend to take up a lot of resources (by necessity). There are endless reports of people attempting to restore a backup created via phpMyAdmin or similar only to find they are incomplete or corrupted.

So essentially the place this feature would be the most useful is also where it is most likely to go wrong. A robust backup solution should always be the responsibility of the host, whether in a shared hosting environment, a dedicated server, or anywhere in between.

I can appreciate the add-on has worked for some people but it's unlikely to become core functionality.

 

[Paul B]

So you don't trust the devs of your own company to create a reliable backup solution for an application they wrote themselves? That is kind of weird. Even weirder is that you prefer to leave customers w/o backup - as many of them simply don't have the abilities and the awareness to find and configure (let alone write) an independent solution. The exact opposite of caring for customer needs I'd say and really a disappointing attitude in my eyes.

Maybe try understanding the issue before criticising me and XF.

This response is exactly why it will never be a thing.

 

[🔥Iggy🔥]

hold on so everyone starts saying how sad it is 2.4 is not here and nothing clear on when that will be released.....then now they want XF to implement all this third party code that already exists?

i feel like just focus what your trying to do already, the editor etc thats overdue....im fine with 3rd party code so long as it exists and supported...theres enough of a community here fortunately so for me i say core functionality first then in some futures once things like content discovery ppl agree should improve happens, help me by less addons installed....im in the 130ish category as well btw....

 

[FTL]

So you don't trust the devs of your own company to create a reliable backup solution for an application they wrote themselves? That is kind of weird. Even weirder is that you prefer to leave customers w/o backup - as many of them simply don't have the abilities and the awareness to find and configure (let alone write) an independent solution. The exact opposite of caring for customer needs I'd say and really a disappointing attitude in my eyes.

Obviously, if you configure a backup solution wrong it won't deliver working results. No reason to blame XF in such a case. Other than that it is no rocket science to backup something like XF if you are somewhat familiar with environments like that.

@Jeremy P's given you a comprehensive explanation that I'd like to add to.

Anyone using self-hosted is expected to have basic admin capabilities which includes a proper understanding of the importance of backups and ensuring that they work properly and how to implement them. If you don't have those basic admin capabilities, then just go XF Cloud and let XF manage all the server side stuff, including backups.

We can use myself as an example of someone who does. I work in IT and have a very good understanding of how computers work, building, troubleshooting them etc, networking and various other areas. However, I had zero experience in running a web server, so I literally tought myself from scratch how to do it.

I understand the critical importance of tested, working, comprehensive backups, but I didn't care too much about them while I was hacking around learning about web servers, building the site, tearing it down and rebuilding a new, improved version of it etc, but ensured that this was in place, tested and working before the site went live. It was literally no backups, no live site, that important. I built it on AWS at the time and used the comprehensive AWS backup tools to set up a backup regime.

Hence, having a Mickey Mouse backup solution built into XF that will likely have lots of issues isn't gonna fly.

 

[ebikes.com]

My backup solution is two bash scripts.. one runs mysqldump.. the other runs zip on /var/www.. both create a zip file that's rotated for X days..
Then we have backblaze backup ( & the script sends backblaze a copy )

Not rocket science and can be used on practically any LAMP application.

I agree that some Linux skills are required to run Xenforo well.. i had to tweak the configurations for apache, elasticsearch, and mysql to get Xenforo running stable on our system with 1.5 million posts. Then you also need bot control.. That's the nature of selfhosting.

 

[AndrewSimm]

My backup solution is two bash scripts.. one runs mysqldump.. the other runs zip..
I agree that some Linux skills are required to run Xenforo well.. i had to tweak the configurations for apache, elasticsearch, and mysql to get Xenforo running stable on our system with 1.5 million posts.

I have two sites with a combined 15M post that I backup at separate times with this method. I backup and then copy a backup to a secondary drive. I then download a copy each night of the backup to a file server at my house using a script.