We all know that website backup is an important part, and it is your responsibility even if your host assures you that they do take it. You can’t blame them if the whole data center along with the backup center goes down. So, we will see how to schedule an automated backup of website files along with database using free Comcure service. If you want peace of mind for free, I recommend Comcure.
Here are the things you will need to set it up;
1. Your website’s FTP login details.
2. The folder location of your website. In most cases, it will be ‘/public_html/’ on a shared server. On VPS or dedicated server, it may be ‘/www/html/youdomain.com/’. I will explain subdomain backup while setup.
3. Your site’s MySQL database name along with it’s username and password. Root is not preferred but may work if the permissions are already given. cPanel users can find their database details under MySQL option.
4. FTP and MySQL ports if you have changed them. Most of the people never do that.
So, let’s start. Go to Comcure homepage and sign-up with a new account. Remember to use regular email like Gmail, Yahoo instead of your domain email.
The first thing you will see after getting into account is Website setup pop-up. Put your domain name without ‘http’.
Clicking next will take you to subsequent step where Comcure will test for the best backup cluster for your server. It will show you results for fastest to not-so fastest (can’t call it slowest). Comcure will ask you to choose the fastest location. Beware that the fastest cluster will mostly be the same country where your server is located. By the principle of cloud backup, it is not a smart choice to have store data in the same country. I selected the slowest location. Reason? It is in the different country from my server is.
After selecting the location you will need to add FTP login details of your server. Don’t worry it is safe. You can also add SFTP from below option if you are using it instead of FTP. Hit Next.
At this step, Comcure will try to connect to your site using FTP. It will show you all the detected settings. This screen is important one so pay attention to each option. Most of the people, will not need to change anything. On VPS and Dedicated servers, you may need to modify the path of ‘Base Directory’. Examples of site base are as shown;
/public_html
/var/www/html/domain.com
/var/www/html
You should use first or last one if you have any other subdomain (say, as CDN or other site) under ‘html’ or ‘public_html’ folder. If you have only one domain the second example is preferable. I used ‘/var/www/html’ as I have CDN subdomain also. Don’t put ‘/’ at end of path.
Click Save Settings. You will be brought to an important part now. Database backup settings! If you are not using a database for your site then just cancel it and you are done. Other people should read ahead.
I recommend you to hit cancel button present on top of window and select option to ‘Keep Website’. Why? Because, I think I found a kind of bug here. After website setup, if you proceed ahead, you won’t be able to save DB backup settings – there will be no button to click at last step.
It is better to launch the DB backup settings from options ‘Websites’ –> ‘Website Settings’. Click on Database Setup. Add details of your database. Remember that it is better to add specific DB user and password than using MySQL ‘root’ user. Click Next.
Now, the most important part. This is where most of the people fails and can’t get comcure database backup to work. Comcure depends on Comcure DB backup agent comprising of two small script files to pull your Database and send it via FTP to backup server. This agent’s path must be configured properly to work.
Create a folder using FTP first. I created folder ‘CC’ for this backup agent under ‘domain.com’ folder so it doesn’t mess up things.
Enter the folder name you created in ‘Website Folder’ where Comcure agent will be stored. Remeber that there should be ‘/’ at end only. Next, select the base directory of your site. You can use the ‘Select’ button to get to it. The path should end at ‘Website Folder’ as shown. Remember, you will need to create the folder at your server first or this will not work.
Hit Save settings. Now we will verify these settings. Check that the path is correct and there are no extra ‘/’.
You should also check the Agent connectivity by clicking ‘Test Agent’. If there are no errors and everything is fine then you are ready to goto final step i.e. adding Database name which you want to backup.
Click ‘Add Database’ and fill up the name of the database associated with your site and above DB login details. You can add more than one database if you want. Click Save. The DB will be added to your list. To check that it is being retrieved properly, click on ‘Status’ in front of it.
You can now come back to Dashboard. It will show next scheduled backup time which you selected during setup. After sometime a ‘Force Backup’ option will appear. You can use this to check that everything is working fine. Everything is done. It is long process but it’s peace of mind afterwards.
Queries and comments are welcome.