On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Bob Turner <Bob@turnerpcc.com> wrote:

Being new to Drupal I don't do any of the below. Being an old-timer on VMware, all I do is shutdown the VM and copy the disk files that represent the computer to another computer. I've also cloned entire web sites, (er computer), in this manner.

Bob

-----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Jacker Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 12:29 PM To: Drupal Support Subject: [support] Backup Approaches - Which Do You Use and Why?

Though I am sure that there are more, I can think of at least four ways to backup a Drupal site:

* Drush's 'archive-dump' (ard) command

(Backup your code, files, and database into a single file.)

* The 'Backup and Migrate' (B&M) module

(simplifies the task of backing up and restoring your Drupal database)

* Use a "version control system" (VCS)

* Use 'rsync'

B&M allows automatic scheduling of backups ... definitely an advantage. 'ard', on the other hand requires manual, 'cron' or scripted invocation.

*I* seem to favor 'ard' since it backs up *code and files* along with databases. B&M, apparently, only backs up databases.

Another approach might be using a VCS (e.g., 'git', 'subversion', _et al_) ... or keep synchronized copies with 'rsync'. (These two, however, seem more suited for maintaining "development" and "production" versions of a site than for backing up.)

How do *you* periodically backup your site(s)?

Thanks for your comments!

-Kenneth -- Prof Kenneth H Jacker khj@cs.appstate.edu Computer Science Dept www.cs.appstate.edu/~khj Appalachian State Univ Boone, NC 28608 USA -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

Whatever backup scheme you choose, make sure to test that the backups are correctly created and managed, and that you can actually restore the site from the backup.

If you have CPanel use the backup facility. Else do a mysqldump of the DB and store the resultant file elsewhere. Also if you have any custom code, be it to core, a contrib module or your own custom module be sure to save those changes in a VCS and store a copy of the VCS data elsewhere. Simple, no need for a bunch of modules. Where the modules come in handy is a move from one host to another but even then they aren't really needed if you know what settings to change. Earnie On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 7:52 AM, Kamal Palei <palei.kamal@gmail.com> wrote:

Last few days even I am thinking whats the best option for backing up drupal sites.

Using below 4 modules, one can automate the backup process. You can backup code, files , you can schedule , you can limit the number of backups required (Example: At year end you may like only 1 backup copy per year is required).

http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate_files http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate_prune http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate_sftp

I have not used it, but planning to explore more on this as I plan for own hosting.

Thanks Kamal NECS, Bangalore

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Kenneth Jacker <khj@be.cs.appstate.edu> wrote:

...

Though I am sure that there are more, I can think of at least four ways to backup a Drupal site:

* Drush's 'archive-dump' (ard) command

(Backup your code, files, and database into a single file.)

* The 'Backup and Migrate' (B&M) module

(simplifies the task of backing up and restoring your Drupal database)

* Use a "version control system" (VCS)

* Use 'rsync'

B&M allows automatic scheduling of backups ... definitely an advantage. 'ard', on the other hand requires manual, 'cron' or scripted invocation.

*I* seem to favor 'ard' since it backs up *code and files* along with databases. B&M, apparently, only backs up databases.

Another approach might be using a VCS (e.g., 'git', 'subversion', _et al_) ... or keep synchronized copies with 'rsync'. (These two, however, seem more suited for maintaining "development" and "production" versions of a site than for backing up.)

How do *you* periodically backup your site(s)?

Thanks for your comments!

-Kenneth -- Prof Kenneth H Jacker khj@cs.appstate.edu Computer Science Dept www.cs.appstate.edu/~khj Appalachian State Univ Boone, NC 28608 USA -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

-- Earnie -- https://sites.google.com/site/earnieboyd

na> I use Backup & Migrate http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate na> http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate_files for routine na> automated backups of databases and files. OK, I was kinda of thinking along the same lines as this ... na> I also use Backup and Migrate Dropbox na> http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate_dropbox to store them off na> the server. Hmmm, didn't know the Backup & Migrate Dropbox module even existed! Thanks for your mentioning it ... -Kenneth