How To Backup WordPress via BackWPup

These instructions are specifically for Peaceful Media servers, using client GAJDA / Raiseyourvalue.com as an example.

1/  Login to Server:

1. Create a folder called “_back” one level above “public_html”
   
2. Set this folder’s permissions to 777 

Notes from Lawrence:

 

On our servers, you’ve gotta create the backup folder yourself (vs. having the plugin do it automatically – cb), and set it to perms of 777.  Thus, files within it becoming 666 (no offense intended, that’s just the octal way of things 😉 This a GOOD thing.  The webserver cannot write to anywhere, unless we tell it that it can 😉

We like to store the backups *outside of* the public_html directory, as that makes things simpler, and avoids recursion issues when doing auto/manual backups.

2/ Login to WordPress:

1. Download the plugin BackWPup https://wordpress.org/plugins/backwpup/
2. Install and activate
3. Create 2 jobs – one for backing up files weekly, and the other for backing up database daily.
4. Create first “Job” to backup the files weekly:
   1. 
5. Follow these settings as a guide on the “General” tab
   1. Name it
   2. Check File backup and Installed plugins list
   3. Append file name so it’s easy to distinguish between db and file back ups on the server
   4. Archive format leave as-is
   5. Back up to Folder
   6. Add client’s email (not shown in photo – I didn’t add the client’s email while I was testing the setup)
   7. and click the box to send only if there’s an error.
   8. 
6. “Schedule” tab
   1. Start job with WordPress cron
   2. Weekly (day of choice  / time of choice)
   3. 
7. “Files” and “Plugins” tabs – default settings are fine – but tweak if needed
8. “To: Folder” tab
   1. This is where you tell the plugin to save the backups on the server.
   2. This is the folder you created called “_back”
   3. The path should be “/home/USERNAME/_back/
   4. Keep the number of file backups low since they can get large
   5. 
9. Save Changes!
10. Do this process again, but this time create a Daily Database backup job.
11. Create New Job
12. “General” tab
    1. Name
    2. Check Database backup only for this job
    3. Append file name
    4. the rest of the settings are the same as the first job (“backup to folder” – add client email and check the box for sending errors only)
    5. 
13. “Schedule” tab
    1. WordPress cron
    2. Daily, time preference
    3. 
14. “DB Backup” leave as default
15. “To: Folder”
    1. same path as previous job, but leave default number for number of files to keep.
    2. 
16. Save changes
17. Now run each job to test, and make sure the files show up in the _back folder on the server
    1. 
    2. 

If the files were saved to the _back folder, you’re done! Whoo hoo!!!

Thanks for setting up a backup schedule for the client’s site!