Easy 5 Step Automation of WordPress Backups
November 24, 2008
On November 11th McColo was turned off for hosting many spam, child porn, and malware sites (article at WashingtonPost.com). But although heavily infused with kiddie porn, malware, and spambot networks, ther were more than a few legitimate sites hosted there too. And now they’re scrambling to rebuild their blogs, sites, and all their content somewhere else. The depressing thing is thinking about how much work the legitimate (and now down) sites are going thru without a good backup to recover with. So they’re having a really tough time right now.
But you can protect yourself now by getting those WordPress sites enabled for backup to internet. We looked around and put together five simple steps that anyone with a WordPress site can use to ensure a frequent, secure, and safe backup.
Automated WordPress Backup to Internet
A. First off, choose the email address you want to use to receive the initial backups. As long as you download email to your computer (using Outlook, SeaMonkey, etc.) you will receive your backups automatically.
B. You can automate the process with WP-DB-Backup and WP-Cron (google and download) or you can set up a CRON job manually (don’t do that). Activate both plugins in your WordPress plugin management page after you’ve downloaded, upzipped, and uploaded them to your site. A variety of plugins are included with WP-Cron. Just activate the ones called WP-Cron and WP-DB-Backup.
C. Now, with the plugins activated, click the “Manage” tab in WordPress. You’ll see a menu item called “Backup”. You want this one. There are various settings for doing a manual backup. Skip that and go to the section titled “Scheduled Backup” (at the bottom). Make sure you enable WP-Cron or it won’t be visible. In the settings for this section, set the schedule to “Daily” (or whatever timeframe is appropriate for your site). Where it says “Email backup to:”, enter the email address you decided to use in Step A. Finally, you’ll have the option to include non-core WP SQL tables. We think bakcing them all up is the safe way to do it. The default is for the plugin to backup all native WordPress tables. After selecting any other tables, click Submit.
D. Now the Rock Solid part. Grab yourself a copy of OPENRSM CloudBackup. It’s reliable, secure, and most flexible backup to internet product we’ve tried. It’s very simple to setup no matter if your a MAC, Windows, or Linux user. Make sure the selection is made to backup your email folders. Now you should set the schedule, click “Daily”.
E. There you go, that’s it! Your WordPress SQL backups should be emailed to you and they’ll be using the backup to internet features of CloudBackup to make sure you don’t lose your site. Check the email account and see the backup arrive. You can now quit worrying and let the plugins, your email account, and CloudBackup do all the work. Just make sure to delete older backups from your email occasionally and your work is done.
And if your site crashes? Fast and easy recovery is now enabled and your not worrying what will happen to you if your host goes away.