Administrative and Maintenance Tools - vBulletin Cron Based Database Backup

As of 23 Nov 2017 this modification has been withdrawn.

This is a cut down version based on a backup system written by Trigunflame for vb 3.0. It is a simple vBulletin cron trigged php system that does a dump of your database - either as one complete file, or as one file per table. Especially useful now that IB removed the old ACP backup option in vBulletin 4. Files can be (G)Zipped to save space.

All the options are located in the ACP in vBulletin Options >> vBulletin Automatic Backup

To install, download and unzip the files, and follow the instructions in the text file.


History:

v4.0.1 : 28-Dec-2009 : Initial release for vb 4.0.0 Gold.
v4.0.2 : 29-Dec-2009 : Added ability to block process larger tables.
v4.0.3 : 27-Jun-2010 : Added Gzip option.

v4.1.0 : 04-Dec-2010 : Updated for vBulletin 4.1.0.

v4.1.7.0 : 16-Oct-2011 : Updated for vBulletin 4.1.7.

v4.2.0.0 : 24-May-2012 : Updated for vBulletin 4.2.0.
v4.2.0.1 : 17-Mar-2013 : Removed vboptions from backup call..
v4.2.0.2 : 25-Nov-2013 : Fix php 5.3 deprecated warnings, added mysqldump backup.

[fldewey]

Works perfect - thank you.

[DaVitsche]

no matter what I try I keep getting this error
Backup Error : Could not write to destination file ( ../testbackups/2011-09-28/Forum-2011-09-28-Access.sql )

I manually created the folder /testbackups and the folder /2011-09-28 gets created automaticly.
I've set 777 to the testbackups folder and all subfolders, but the file itself isn't being written.

This is the path I filled in Vbulletin automatic options: ../testbackups/

What am I missing?

after losing 8 years worth of content after 2 issues I want those backups to work!

[Paul M]

Its a permissions error of some kind, you probably need to speak to your host.

[charlesr]

I had the same problem as DaVitsche - no amount of permission fiddling would work. Moving the backupfolder inside the normal website structure at the same level as "includes" for example worked fine with chmod 755.

[Trevor Matthews]

Hi
I too have the same problem.

backBackup Error : Could not write to destination file ( ../../backups/2011-10-08/Forum-2011-10-08-Access.sql )

I created a folder called backups and put in the forums folder and tried it in the root of the server but I stil get the above error.

Permissions were tried at 777 and 755.

Any idea what I have done wrong?

[Trevor Matthews]

Problem solved.

I created a folder called backups and placed it in the same folder as my forum.

I then set the path to backups/
That solved the problem and it now works.

How do I know if I have any InnoDB Tables

And should I set block processing to on and what size should I select?

My forums database is about 40meg on the server and the gzip file is 10meg, does that sound right?

Thanks for a very useful mod.

[Paul M]

You should avoid saving backups anywhere that is acessible over the web (like in your forum folder). If you must, then at the very least protect the folder using htaccess. If you dont anyone can access your backups by typing in the url.

[Trevor Matthews]

It seems Cometchat uses InnoDB tables.
I have this installed so have selected that option.

[TeknoSounds]

Originally Posted by Trevor Matthews

Hi
I too have the same problem.

backBackup Error : Could not write to destination file ( ../../backups/2011-10-08/Forum-2011-10-08-Access.sql )

I created a folder called backups and put in the forums folder and tried it in the root of the server but I stil get the above error.

Permissions were tried at 777 and 755.

Any idea what I have done wrong?

Originally Posted by Trevor Matthews

Problem solved.

I created a folder called backups and placed it in the same folder as my forum.

I then set the path to backups/
That solved the problem and it now works.

How do I know if I have any InnoDB Tables

And should I set block processing to on and what size should I select?

My forums database is about 40meg on the server and the gzip file is 10meg, does that sound right?

Thanks for a very useful mod.

You can set the folder outside the forums using the relative path. Such as "../backups/" This path works for me currently. But as mentioned if anything you will need to protect it with a htaccess user/pw to ensure its not immediately accessible from the net.
I see in your previous post you used "../../path/"
That path will go up 2 folders from the VB forums folder. The question is does your linux user have permissions to be able to write to that folder?
And yes, that zip file sounds about right for the correct size.

[FTDave]

If you don't install this you are insane.

This little hack has saved me big time!!!!

Thank you!!!