Comments on: How to backup WPMU

By: Eddi Hughes

Eddi Hughes — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:22:23 +0000

I’m sooo sharing this out. Got a few peoples that ask this frequently. Indeed, very helpful run down.

By: RKM

RKM — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:22:59 +0000

I just noticed that my post above is not showing correctly.

I explained that the “-opt” instruction written above, should include *two* dashes. For some reason, WordPress seems to eliminate the two dashes and substitutes one.

To Repeat: For those having problems with the routine listed, make sure there are TWO dashes before opt. In other words “- -opt” (remove quotes and space)

By: RKM

RKM — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:25:19 +0000

If you have questions about the command-line switches, just look in the manual:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysqldump.html

In short, the “opt” switch is telling it to backup everything (as opposed to just one explicit portion of the database). It would be the same as typing:

–add-drop-table –add-locks –create-options –disable-keys –extended-insert –lock-tables –quick –set-charset

The reason for the error, is that the syntax in the article is incorrect. IT should be specified as “–opt” (without quotes).

Just a note.. Still looking for any suggestions on taking “image” snapshot backups of the entire WordPress server, rather than simply DB backups. This is key to many of us, who run special iptables/other firewall/security fixes (eg mod_security, mod_evasive configs), etc.

IMHO – there is a lot more to backup than simply the DB and the wordpress directories, which is why I ask.

By: Gary Cameron

Gary Cameron — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:31:27 +0000

I am also curious what the -opt command does. I get an error when it is included so I left it out. Now to try a test restore.

By: RKM

RKM — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:51:17 +0000

Great article!

Any suggestion for those of us that would prefer a snapshot/image backup, that can be re-deployed from bare-metal (possibly to a VM image for VPS that support them)?

I had read that rsync could do this, but I wasn’t able to get it to work, after spending 4 hours trying different things/reading blogs on the topic.

By: Backup Bookmarks for November 26th through December 5th | FileSlinger™ Backup Blog

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:09:15 +0000

[...] How to backup WPMU – WPMU Tutorials – [...]

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:37:44 +0000

This one also works:

mysqldump -u ron -ppass dbname > dbname.sql && zip -m dbname.sql.zip dbname.sql

By: James

James — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:14:57 +0000

I use a cron job from within cpanel to send an email to myself each day. I have them marked in gmail as “spam”. This means that google conveniently keeps 30 days worth of backups for me without filling my precious inbox space
Dunno if this is a “best practice” method, but it works.
Andrea, what does “-opt” do? Keep up the fantastic work here. I is hungry for more knowledge!

By: curtismchale

curtismchale — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:01:47 +0000

What about using one of the automated plugins that work on WordPress? I have never had issues with them there but wonder if they may miss something in the MU tables that doesn’t exist in WP?

By: David Coveney

David Coveney — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:55:17 +0000

Now, as an old school developer I’ve always placed backups firmly in the camp of “somebody else’s problem.” Sysadmins can look after that kind of stuff

But more seriously, good tips there if you’re having to admin via SSH and not much else. When I need to move files and dumps, however, I personally tend to just connect with WinSCP over SSH for the file moving, and with mySQL Administrator over port 3306 – that way you can do a migrate to your local machine or server with just a few seconds of effort.