How to take daily backup of your Drupal website automatically ?

Are you on a linux host with access to cron?

If so, the easiest thing (what I do) is to invoke daily a shell script.
I have this script in /sites (e.g. /sites/bachup.sh). I created a folder /sites/backup, and every day the backup is saved there. Note, that every day this erases the previous day's backup. With a little work, you could make it leave a week's work of backups, or some such.

If you search here on d.o, you'll find some other similar scripts posted.

Make sure you chmod 700 the script, and substitute below the relevant values for your mysql account for <USERNAME> <PASSWORD> <DATABASE>, and change "mysite" to your site name (if desired).

#01-23-2007 by PWolanin
#a simple script to execute via Cron to make a downloadable
#archive of all website files.  Switched to using zip for better PC compatibility

umask 0077;

DT=`date "+%m%d%y"`;

PREFIX='mysite-backup';

FN=$PREFIX$DT;

cd ~/public_html;

rm -f sites/backup/$PREFIX*;

DBFN='mysite-backup'$DT'.sql';

mysqldump -u<USERNAME> -p<PASSWORD>  --add-drop-table <DATABASE> > $DBFN;

zip -q -r sites/backup/$FN . -x sites/backup/* 

rm -f $DBFN;

I know very little about software. Drupal is such an amazing software that its easy to learn. Please tell me if there is a module for 5.1 which will back up by itself. I dont know php or mysql or chmod etc..i see these terms being used :)

I can follow basic instructions...so is there something for a dummy like me :)

Backup for dummies....i would prefer to back the entire site and database everyday...on the server itself..and make a local copy on my computer once a week....and a system which deletes old copies a week old..and installs the latest one is a great idea..

someone please help me on this.

thanks.

Before you go to this kind of trouble, insure that your host doesn't already make backups for you. Esepcially of your files..... Many do. If yours however does not continue to read on.

What I use:

for website files

Here is a php script that will create a compressed backup of your website files, creating a different file each day for a month (then start over) so you have 30 days of backups. It will email you with a backup confirmation. Run it every night using cron to kick it off. You should download the backup files from the server on a regular basis.

<?php 
$emailaddress = "XXXXXX@yourdomain.com"; 
$target = "/home/".get_current_user()."/backup.".date(d).".tar.gz"; 
if (file_exists($target)) unlink($target); 
system("tar --create --preserve --gzip  --file=".$target." ~/public_html ~/mail",$result); 
$size = filesize($target); 
switch ($size) { 
  case ($size>=1048576): $size = round($size/1048576) . " MB"; break; 
  case ($size>=1024);    $size = round($size/1024) . " KB"; break; 
  default:               $size = $size . " bytes"; break; 
} 
$message = "The website backup has been run.\n\n"; 
$message .= "The return code was: " . $result . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "The file path is: " . $target . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "Size of the backup: " . $size . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "Server time of the backup: " . date(" F d h:ia") . "\n\n"; 
mail($emailaddress, "Website Backup Message" , $message, "From: Website <>");  
?> 

If you want to exclude a directory, add the --exclude parm to the tar command as shown in the example below (which will exlcude the public_html/audio directory):
system("tar --create --preserve --gzip --file=".$target." --exclude ~/public_html/audio ~/public_html ~/mail",$result);

Please note that this script is very resource intensive. Do not run it more than once a day, and do not run it at peak times. If you have a large site the script may timeout depending on the server settings, but the backup may still be created.
Before using cron, run the script from your browser to make sure it works as anticipated.
Set a cron job to run the script once a day (at an odd time - like 4:23am - to minimize server load issues).
This example backs up the public_html and mail directories.
The backup file (named backup.XX.tar.gz) will be created in your root directory (above public_html).

for MySQL

Here is a php script that will backup your MySQL database, creating a different file each day for a month (then start over) so you have 30 days of backups. It will email you with a backup confirmation. Run it every night using cron to kick it off. Replace the X's with your information. You should also download the backup files from the server on a regular basis.

<?php 
$emailaddress = "XXXXXX@yourdomain.com"; 
$host="XXXXXX"; // database host 
$dbuser="XXXXXX"; // database user name 
$dbpswd="XXXXXX"; // database password 
$mysqldb="XXXXXX"; // name of database 
$filename = "/full_server_path_to_file_goes_here/backup" . date("d") . ".sql"; 
if ( file_exists($filename) ) unlink($filename); 
system("mysqldump --user=$dbuser --password=$dbpswd --host=$host $mysqldb > $filename",$result); 
$size = filesize($filename); 
switch ($size) { 
  case ($size>=1048576): $size = round($size/1048576) . " MB"; break; 
  case ($size>=1024): $size = round($size/1024) . " KB"; break; 
  default: $size = $size . " bytes"; break; 
} 
$message = "The database backup for " . $mysqldb . " has been run.\n\n"; 
$message .= "The return code was: " . $result . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "The file path is: " . $filename . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "Size of the backup: " . $size . "\n\n"; 
$message .= "Server time of the backup: " . date(" F d h:ia") . "\n\n"; 
mail($emailaddress, "Database Backup Message" , $message, "From: Website <>");  
?> 

You can restore the database using the following line in a php script:

system( "mysql --user=$dbuser --password=$dbpswd --host=$host $mysqldb < $filename",$result);

Note that hosts may have different paths for the mysql commands. For example /usr/local/bin/mysqldump could be required.

If you want the backup file to be compressed, then change two lines (the $filename variable and the system() command) as follows:

$filename = "/full_server_path_to_file_goes_here/backup" . $day . ".sql.gz"; 
system( "mysqldump --user=$dbuser --password=$dbpswd --host=$host $mysqldb | gzip > $filename",$result); 

Hi, I've wanted to have a daily backup for only one week of public_html and of database. I found this old thread and wanted to post what I did so maybe it helps others.

I've created to bash scripts wich I put on the root of my site with executable privileges, and call them to run once a day during low traffic hours from cron job.

And the scripts are:

#!/bin/bash
DATESTAMP=`date +%Y%m%d`
mysqldump --opt -h 127.0.0.1 -u MYDATABASEUSER -MYPASS MYDATABASE | gzip -c > db_auto-backup`date "+%Y%a"`.gz

and:

#/bin/bash
/bin/tar czPf /home/MYSITE/public_html-auto-backup_`date "+%Y%a"`.tar.gz /home/MYSITE/public_html

%a stands for short weekday, and as I omitted day and month, I only get backup of the last week only.

Cheers,
Mguel

PS: any correction or improvement is welcome since I'm not a programmer nor nothing near.