Automatic WordPress Backup
In this post, I mentioned that I was using WordPress Database Backup to backup the databases from my WordPress installations. I was using this too email myself the dumps of the databases.
I have switched to using the Automatic WordPress Backup. This plugin will backup the themes, plugins, configuration files, uploaded files, and the dump of the database, to an Amazon S3 bucket. You can configure the plugin to keep a number days or weeks of backups.
VaultPress and WordPress backups
VaultPress is in interesting WordPress plugin/service. You install a plugin and then their services offers the following features:
- Automatic backup of your content that is hosted in WordPress
- Automatic patching of your WordPress install
I think that the automatic backup of content is interesting, especially since the backup happens as soon as you add content. I am not sure about the automatic patching of the WordPress installation. I would be concerned about the plugin patching the WordPress installation to one that has a problem, without my knowledge. For example, WordPress 2.9 had a problem with certain version of the curl library in PHP, and the 2.9.1 version fixed it. When performing the patch manually, you have the opportunity to make sure that there aren’t any reported problems.
Also, I am interested in seeing how a restore would work with this plugin. For example, if my database got corrupt, how would I restore. Also, how many previous revisions are kept in the backup. Since they are saving any change made in the WordPress installation to the backup, this could also mean that any accidental/malicious deletion would also be automatically propagated.
Currently, I am just using the WordPress Database Backup plugin, and just having it email me the dumps of the database tables. If I need to restore, I would just need to restore the database from the backup that I want. The things that are not being backed-up in this process are any uploaded photos or the installation itself, but that is covered my my hosting provider.
[via Matt Cutts]
CloudBerry Backup for WHS [updated]
HP appears to have dropped support for their online backup add-in for Window Home Server, HP created their online backup software for the ex47x and ex48x MediaSmart servers, but now are promoting other backup services for their current line of servers. Their add-in used Amazon S3 for storage. I have used JungleDisk on my desktop machines to backup, so I am pretty used to that storage system. But since it that HP probably not continuing development, I wanted to find a solution to have an offsite backup for some of the files on the server, that would continue to be supported.
I am trying CloudBerry Backup for Windows Home Server. This is very similar to HP’s online backup add-in and the old JungleDisk Windows Home server. CloudBerry lets you pick any share or a connected drive to backup. Also you can set a time range when backups can happen.
I did have a problem after setting this up. I has some paths on some of the shares that were too long for Windows (These were copied from my linux computer). When CloudBerry encountered this error, it listed the error in the error email that was sent.
I will probably pay for CloudBerry Backup once the trial is over
Windows Home Server Backup
Now that our MediaSmart Windows Home server supports backing up our Mac OS X computers with Time Machine, I freed up the 1.5 TB USB drive that had been connected to our Mac mini.
I am pretty happy with our current backup situation. All of our computers are backed up to the Windows Home Server. I use HP Online Backup, to backup some of this data to Amazon S3 for offsite storage. But there is still a chance that I can loose data. Since, I don’t have all of our data stored offsite, if the computers and the server are damaged, then I will lose data. I could have all of the content on the server sent to Amazon S3, but this would take too much time and cost too much money.
I figured that I could use this now-available 1.5 TB drive to backup the backups from the other computers. Then I could take this drive to a safe deposit box for safe keeping.
Windows Home Server supports using a drive as a backup for the server, instead of increasing storage space. When you do this, you can specify which shares you want to back up. You can’t schedule unattended backups, but you can do manual backups (I assume this is because Microsoft assumed that these drives would be stored offsite, and would need to be physically connected to perform the backup.)
Clearing Amazon S3 storage
This post had a good tip about using SpaceBlock to browse your Amazon S3 account. I have been using JungleDisk to back up several of my computers to Amazon S3 for several years now. When I browsed my storage, I realized that I had backups in my S3 bucket for computers that I migrated all of my data off of. Since Amazon charges a monthly charge for the amount of data that you have stored, I decided to clean up my storage.
I ended up not using SpackBlock to delete these files. I just used JungleDisk to delete these files. I was able to use either the web based browser that JungleDisk provides as well as actually mounting the storage, an just deleting the files.
It tool several hours to delete the files, but I hoping that I will save a few dollars a month.
HP Online Backup
When HP made the Mac OS X’s Time Machine support available for owners of the MediaSmart ex47x servers, they also make online backup available. HP’s Online Backup is a backup solution that is based upon Amazon’s S3.
With HP Online Backup, you select which of the shares on the server should be backed up, and you can also setup a schedule for when backup occurs. This is pretty much the same functionality that the Jungle Disk Windows Home Server add-in has.
Time Machine backup on HP MediaSmart
HP just released the support for allowing Mac OS X computers to back up to the older models of HP MediaSmart Windows Home Servers. I installed this, so I can back up our Mac mini to our server. I have been using an external USB drive, but this would enable me to stop using that drive as a backup for the Mac mini, but instead, I can use that drive as a removable backup drive for the server itself.
The setup on the server was very straight forward. All I had to do was create a share named “Mac”, and I didn’t have to give any user write permissions to it.
Then on the Mac, I installed the HP MediaSmart software. After a reboot, when I launched the software, it asked for the server name and adminstrator passowrd. Once those were configured, I clicked on the Backup tab. This is where I had some problems.
