Scheduling backups

When you schedule a backup, you automate the backup to occur regularly at a pre-set date, time, and location. No manual interfacing is necessary to initiate the backup.

Scheduling backups -

• Automatically invokes a backup at the scheduled date and time

• Ensures that files are backed up regularly without fail

• Saves you the overhead of remembering to take a manual backup regularly

• Frees up manual resources to focus on other operational tasks

You may back up the data onto an FTP server or download it to a local server or desktop.

• Important: Ensure that the target server has enough space to accommodate the backup, otherwise the backup will fail.

Before you begin

Before you begin a back up, have the following information ready.

• The name of the FTP server to which you want to save your data

• Your FTP login user name and password to log onto the FTP server

• The directory path of the backup directory on the FTP server

• Note: It is recommended that you back up the site and user files in different backup directories, to quickly identify the files you want to restore.
  
  If you back them up in the same backup directory, selecting files for restoring becomes overwhelming, as during restore, all the backed up files are simply listed without clear demarcation as to the type of backup each compressed file belongs to.
  
  For example, you could back up the site files to a site_backup directory and back up users to a user_backup directory, instead of backing them all up in one common directory, say, my_backup.

• Maximum file size of the data being backed up

• Note: Various file systems and FTP server utilities have limits on the file size they can handle. If the size of your backup file exceeds the file management capacity of the file system or the FTP server utility on your backup server, then WEBppliance splits the file into multiple files before continuing with the backup.

To schedule a backup, click Backup/Restore in the shortcuts area of the Home page (Tools section).
 

go to wizard Step1 Step2 Step3 Step4

You need to choose the type of backup (Site backup or User backup), provide necessary FTP account details and other miscellaneous information.
 

wizard Step1: Choose the type of backup

1. Choose the type of backup, by selecting one of the following option buttons in the Backup area.

1. Site - Backs up your site.

2. Users - Backs up data pertaining to site users.

Click the arrow in the Users list, and choose only one of the following.

• All - To back up all user accounts

• <name of the User> - To back up a particular user. Press
  Ctrl + the left mouse button to select multiple users.

wizard Step2: Enter backup Schedule information

2. Schedule your backup.  

3. Important: If your site uses demanding database applications, then daily backups are advised to insure against data loss. Premium sites, demanding applications, highly volatile data entities qualify for daily backups.

Choose any one of the option buttons in the Frequency field.

• Daily - Backs up files daily at the scheduled time

• Weekly - Backs up files weekly at the scheduled date and time

• Monthly - Backs up files monthly at the scheduled date and time

3. Click the arrow in the Minutes list, and select a number between 0 and 59.

4. Click the arrow in the Hours list, and select a number between 0 and 23.

5. Click the arrow in the Day of Week list, and select a day between Sunday and Saturday.

6. Click the arrow in the Day of Month list, and select a number between 1 and 31.

7. Important: Selecting a number that exceeds 28 in the Day of Month list will fail to run the backup as scheduled on certain months.
   For example, selecting 31, will not invoke a backup on any of the months that have only 30 or 28 days.

wizard Step3: Enter FTP information

7. In the FTP Server field, enter the name of the FTP server you want to use as the backup server.

8. In the FTP Login field, enter the login user name to the FTP server.

9. In the FTP Password field, enter the login password to the FTP server.

10. In the FTP Location field, enter the directory path of the directory on the FTP server you want to use as the backup directory. If you leave the field blank, the files will be saved to the home directory of the user specified in step 3.  

11. Note: If the specified directory does not exist, the backup fails and an email message is sent to you about the error.

wizard Step4: Enter miscellaneous information

11. In the Maximum Backup File Size field, enter the maximum size of the backup file.

12. Important: Various file systems and FTP server utilities have limits on the file size they can handle. If the size of your backup file exceeds the file management threshold of the file system or the FTP server utility on your backup server, then WEBppliance splits the file into multiple files before continuing with the backup.  
    The split files follow the naming convention as given below:
    <backupfilename.tar>
    <backupfilename.1.tar>
    <backupfilename.2.tar>
    where backupfilename is the name of your backup file.

12. Click the arrow in the Unit list, and choose the capacity of data transfer (in Megabytes or Gigabytes).

13. In the Email field, enter the email address at which you want to receive email notifications about your backup. If you do not want to receive email notifications, leave the field blank.

14. Click Schedule.

The list of scheduled backups is updated. The backup will be initiated automatically at the set date and time to the specified location.