How to Back Up Your Website
This week, the hosting service for this blog went down big time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sites were unavailable for hours because of problems with the hosting company. There are all kinds of rumors, such as the fiber optics cable being cut, the company moving, etc. The point is, the hosting company’s downtime was a good reminder to back up websites on a regular basis and to store the site on your hard drive or other storage device that you control.
If you do not know how to download your website, here are some tips.
For a Simple Site without mySQL Databases
A site that has a content management system such as WordPress will rely on mySQL databases. For a simple, brochure type of site, all you need to do is ftp all of your files to your hard drive. If you have installed cgi scripts, you might want to transfer a copy of them to your hard drive.
Backups Available from the Control Panel
Yesterday, we talked a bit about the control panel. Among many other features, there is a backup utility within the control panel. Log into your cpanel and you will see the following:
Click the backup icon and you will see a number of different backup options that are shown on the image below. These options include a full system backup, a home directory backup, mySQL database backups and email backups.
Except for the mySQL database backup which easily transfers to any host, these backups generally work the best if you are restoring your site data on your current hosting account or setting up a new hosting account (you will need to remember your passwords for the new account and will need to remember the way the site is set up; I have had problems using the backup/restore for transferring a site to a new account). If you have a large mySQL database, you might need to use a function such as Big Dump to restore the database.
When using the backup feature from your control panel, you can also use the same backup file in the “restore” area.
In this example, I am going to do a full backup of the NotGuru site. Note that on the system backup page, there is a restore box.
Backup & Restore Options in the cPanel
When you select the “Full Backup,” the system will give you the option of creating a backup file on the server or to a different location using remote ftp. For this example, we’ll save the file on the server.
Selecting the backup file location.
The system will send you an email telling you when the backup file is available.
The system will send an email when the backup file is created.
When the backup is complete, you receive an email.
An email will come in.
You can go to the Backup page like we did before and you will see your file. It will be a tar.gz file with the current date. In this example, I had left my control panel page open and when the email came in, simply clicked the “back” button and it showed up.
The tar file will show in your backup page.
Click on the link for your backup file and the download prompts will appear.
You can also find your backup file by:
- Going to the “home” page of your cPanel
- Selecting file manager
- Downloading the backup link - it will show on your server pages, not under public_html.
The backup file can be accessed from File Manager.
As a precautionary measure, I typically will back up the mySQL database as an additional, separate download just i case the full backup does not work right.
IMPORTANT NOTE - When you create a backup file, be sure to save it to your hard drive, portable hard drive or other storage media that you control. If your web host goes down permanent, you will never be able to access your backups if they are stored on the server and nowhere else.
Conclusion - Backup Your Website Regularly
There are other backup methods. For instance, there’s a backup plugin that you can get for your WordPress blogs.
Invariably, all hosting providers have down time — even when they promise 99.9% uptime. One hosting service that I found that offers an unbelievable price of just a $40 once-time-only fee for ten years has been amazingly stable with no downtime. Get all the details here. No matter who you use to host your site with, be sure to backup at least once a week and, if it’s a busy site, weekly or possibly daily.
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