Backup Questions

[piper]

How reliable is the backup that you can download from CPanel? I mean the integrity of the data that I download -- will it be sound, corrupt, etc..?

I plan to make frequent database and website backups. How will this affect the server? Will I kill it? If I do kill it, will I be forced to upgrade to a higher plan due to using too many server resources during backups?

[Vin DSL]

How reliable is the backup that you can download from CPanel?

IMHO, they aren't worth sh!t... that's one of the reasons nobody uses them! In my experience, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, so... Sometimes I'm bored and download the cPanel backups, just to see if they DO work!

Personally, I shell into my account, do a backup from PuTTY and save it to disk. This is one of the few times I use CLI, but it's really the best way!

For backing up my sql dbs, I use phpMyAdmin (my own install) and save it to disk. I could do this from CLI too, but why -- you know?

Then, I use WinSCP to download the backup[s] to my local PC...

[Vin DSL]

I plan to make frequent database and website backups. How will this affect the server?

Bottom line: No problem! Do it!!!

[piper]

Thanks. I downloaded my database through phpMyadmin.

[Vin DSL]

The cPanel version of phpMyAdmin works just fine for sql db backups! A problem sometimes crops up when you go to restore HUGE backups, e.g. the process will timeout if the backup is 'too big'. That's where having your own install is really nice -- you can restore from a custom directory in phpMyAdmin...

However, you can cross that bridge when you get there!

[jason]

I plan to make frequent database and website backups. How will this affect the server? Will I kill it? If I do kill it, will I be forced to upgrade to a higher plan due to using too many server resources during backups?

The load on the server required to dump a DB or archive an account is a tiny portion of what the server is capable of handing. Unless something goes seriously wrong and you end up in some kind of endless loop or something (which is very unlikely if you are using the common tools for this like tar), then no one will probably even notice that you made a backup.

--Jason

[Ron]

I have to disagree. When I tar my account, Wait I/O goes through the roof; when I gzip the tarball, user CPU time goes through the roof. Either operation tends to effect me somewhat. So I actually do both at the same time by piping the tar command through gzip, and it seems to balance the load a little bit, and my site doesn't seem to slow as much. If two users were doing this simultaneously, I think it would have a serious effect on the server.

Also, when I use WinSCP to download the compressed tarball, it consumes around 5-10% of CPU, not to mention sapping a sustained 4MBits of bandwith capability for more than an hour.

Just a gzipped db backup is only 30MB though. It's the darn images that hurt so much.

[Gwaihir]

cPanel back-up: the main problem I have with it, is that it requires me to log in and press a couple of buttons. I like such repeated tasks automated.

Packing up and downloading full backups takes much system resources and bandwith? So don't to it! Enter the world of synchronization. I use rsync for this which sends only the changed parts of files across the wire, but other tools like WinSCP and good FTP clients can already sync folders for you, sending not all but only the changed files. I'm pretty sure only a minor percentage of those 'darn images' ever changes from one back-up to the next..

[Ron]

You are right, of course. A tarball was so convenient to work with, when my site was smaller. I guess it's just the way I've "always" done it. I suppose I should look into some sort of an incremental backup setup.

sigh

[akreider2]

Information on how to use WinSCP to sync the files between your home computer and the server - for backing up. I'm going to try this.

http://dmihalik.com/articles/2006/01...th-strongspace

[Connie]

Why do I have the felling this is an add for strongspace.com?

[akreider2]

You don't need strongspace, you can back up onto your own hard drive.

[lloyd_borrett]

G'day,

After recently having lost EVERYTHING I had on the chamaeleon server, I've started to look into better ways to do my own backups.

I keep backups of files on my own systems, so it's the mySQL databases I really need to backup regularly.

I had been using the Control Panel database backups on an irregular basis for most of my accounts. (I hadn't started to do this for the accounts on chamaeleon. Thus I really lost everything, and it took me 4 full days to rebuild my databases after the crash.)

As has been pointed out, the Control Panel database backups are not terribly reliable. This method also requires you to manually backup all databases across all accounts. Not exactly an ideal, hands free solution.

Some people I know suggested to try mySQLdumper, an open source solution available at http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/index.php?m=0. They think it's a truly great solution.

My understanding is that mySQLdumper will create cron jobs to do the database backups based on a schedule you set up. It can handle large databases. And it can use FTP to transfer the backup files to another system.

It looks ideal. But the installation documentation is just too sparse for me and my limited understanding of Linux, Perl, PHP, .htaccess, cron jobs etc. Thus I haven't been able to get it running on a JaguarPC based account as yet.

If anyone else out there has already installed and used mySQLdumper on a JaguarPC account, or gives it a try and works out the installation procedure, I'd really appreciate a guide as to how to install and configure it properly.

Best Regards, Lloyd.

[Vin DSL]

Heh! Always looking for the easy way out, eh what?

[Zenigata]

I have over 1,5Gb in my space and, if I try to make a backup via cpanel, the server hang up. So I bought 10Gb of backup space from Jaguarpc and I've transferred most important files via scp.