Drupal backup strategies

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pzula's picture
Posted by pzula on January 18, 2013 at 6:24pm

As I'm getting ready to launch a site of significant size, I want to come up with a solid backup plan. In the past, I've either have sysadmins taking care of this with server backups, or I've relied on the host plus backup & migrate module. I also have my local development copy and GitHub copies should all else fail.

What is your Drupal backup process?

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Backup & Migrate + Git (or other file-management system)

Posted by tgeller on January 19, 2013 at 8:30pm
tgeller's picture

Hi, pzula. The main difficulty in making Drupal site backups is the database. So I install the Backup & Migrate module (http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate) on all my sites, and schedule it to backup the database periodically. Then I copy all the site's files somewhere else.

Step by step:

  1. Click Configuration > File system.
  2. Enter a path in the "Private file system path" spot. I usually copy the "Public file system path" and add "private" (e.g. sites/NAMEOFSITE/files/private). Drupal should create the directory, with proper permissions.
  3. Download and install Backup and Migrate.
  4. Click Configuration > Backup & Migrate > Schedules.
  5. Create your schedules. I do daily for 10 days; weekly for 5 weeks; monthly for 12 months.
  6. B&M will place those backup files in your private file directory. Click B&M's "Destinations" tab to to see them (and restore when needed).
  7. Backup your site's files, whether the full Drupal install or just /sites. Your database backups will be inside there.

Good luck!

Tom Geller * Oberlin * San Francisco * TomGeller.com
Author/Presenter, Drupal video series at lynda.com
Creator of materials for Drupal-focused companies

the hard way(?) or the old-fashioned way (?)

Posted by fndtn357 on January 20, 2013 at 5:44pm
fndtn357's picture

I create an assets/ folder at the web root level and protect it with .htaccess. I create sqldumps with drush into the assets folder and I also compress the sites/ directory and all the files and folders beneath it and put that into assets/. This folder is also under version control as well.