Which is the best way to backup?

[master786]

Dear vbulletin staff !

I would like to ask that which is the best way to backup full vbulletin forum (files + database) My forum is hosted on a dedicated server but I heard that Cpanel backup is not the proper way. Is that true. Which is the best practice to do backup and is there any tutorial that I can read.

Also , I have backed up my forum through Cpanel and the file name is urdu.tar.gz. Is it the full backup or just the files?

[Steve Machol]

I have tested the CPanel backups and they work fine. Make sure you backup both the site and the database.

The recommended method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_backup

Restore:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_restore

[Floris]

The best way to backup is through the shell.
You can use a cron script that makes automated (archived) daily backups, or you can run a mysql command to dump the data to a .sql file. Instructions for the latter (manual backup) can be found in the 'techn. documents' appendix here http://www.vBulletin.com/docs/html

[master786]

I have tested the CPanel backups and they work fine. Make sure you backup both the site and the database.

How can I backup both site and database? Is that the link which says full backup?

[Steve Machol]

Not sure what CPanel considers a 'Full backup'. However a 'Home Directory' backup should backup all your web site files and the 'MySQL Database Backup' will backup the databases you choose.

[Dennis Olson]

Realistically, you only need to backup your non-database files when anything changes. So having a "master" of those on CD would be fine. Thedatabase should be backed up daily, and preferably mirrored as well (for extra redundancy).

[McDaniel]

Ok if I ever decide to move to a new host I will need to download all the forum and then back up the database if understand this right. Why is telnet better than a manual back up of the database?

[trool]

i got a question regarding backup of the db when i use the backupdatabase from admin panel of vbulletin i get a 30meg file but when u backup via ssh i get only a 17meg files can someone explein me this ?

[Steve Machol]

The mysqldump backup will always be optimized and smalller. This is normal.