How can i do a backup?
 

Hi

Can someone please tell me how I can backup my forum please in the easiest way possible?

Also how long will this take on a small forum?

You can do a backup from your cpanel (if thats what you use).

www.domain.tld/cpanel > Backup > click on your database name

or from your admincp

www.domain.tld/admincp > Maintenance > Database Backup > Select "All Yes" and then click Go

Should take a max of 15 minutes for a small forum, but it also depends on your internet speed.

Performing a cPanel backup is the worst of all and will cause many corrupted databases so my advice to you is to backup and restore via phpMyAdmin since you're having a small forum anyway.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=106935

The only reliable method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. This is because backing up with a PHP script like that in the Admin CP or phpMyAdmin can result in PHP timeouts errors and an incomplete backup file. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...nce_ssh_backup

Restore:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...ce_ssh_restore

P.S. If you don't have shell access, some people have also reported success with these scripts:

MySQLDumper:
http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/index.php

MySQLHotxcopy:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...t=mysqlhotcopy

Bigdump:
http://www.ozerov.de/bigdump.php

@Snake

Why would a cPanel backup corrupt your database? I never seen a database be corrupted because of a cPanel backup.

Oh believe me, it does corrupt the database. I used to switch servers a lot from time to time long time ago and have been doing the backup and restore process many times. I've always tried to backup a database via cPanel and it wasn't doing any good. Try to backup a huge (or even a small) database using cPanel and see for yourself. You'll see what I mean. It doesn't backup the whole database of a forum, it stops at the end with lots of missing tables. Don't ask me why it corrupts the database, I'm not the one who created cPanel. My usual solution for moving hosts/servers or any other reason is by using the BigDump script or sometimes SSH, depends whether I'm running a huge database or not.

Well that does not make any sense, nor do you tell how it corrupts a database when creating a backup.

PS I use cPanel backups myself on 1 of my large boards and have never ran into problems, and the backup size of this site is around 24Gb (compressed)!! I also never saw a support ticket from a customer where the database was corrupted by a (cPanel) backup.

If i done a backup in control panel, where does it save too?

Does your host not backup for you?

Typically your backup should be in your username dir for your account, typically like so:

/hom/username/nameofbackup.tgz or .gz

Im not sure, its a good question to be honest!

I just get worried incase I loose everything :eek:

My host backsup every 2-3 days,so i don't really need to worry about it,I think i'll do a backup myself now and again tho just to be on the safe side.

how do you backup other non-database files?

In the vBulletin Options section, there is a backup xml files, but you have to click each manually.
I need to backup other script files, how do I do?

I know I could ftp files, but when I restore them, what kind of permission chmod should I use?

To backup the files on the server, simply download them to your PC. Also, there's no need to export product XMLs, as the data is contained within the database.

If your using cpanel or some of the other control panels, cpanel backs up everything pertaining to said account, from db's to php files to htaccess files etc, they will all be placed in the same gz ot tgz'd file.

Typically most files will have the correct permissions they had when you ftp them back to the server.