Getting started with MyBackup

Thank you for choosing our software!

Before using the application for the first time please read the instructions below. They will help understand how it works. The more you know about its features and functionalities the happier you will be later.

If you are using a Free Web Hosting provider then WP MyBackup may reach some of their system limitations like `CPU Limit Exceeded` or `Script Timeout`. Moreover, some Free Web Hosting providers will (temporarely) suspend your website if you exceed these limitation frequently.
In order to overcome that situation you might want to tune the WP MyBackup Expert settings.
Check also the question #10, #18, #20 and #22 on FAQ page.

1. Check if your system meets the requirements
2. Configure the global options
3. Define the backup job
4. Run the backup job
5. Restore a backup copy
   1. if using the WP MyBackup plug-in then:
      1. Full backup
   2. if NOT having the Restore Addon then:
      1. Full backup
      2. Differential backup
      3. Incremental backup
   3. if HAVING the Restore Addon then:
      1. Restore via Addon
6. Define multiple backup jobs
7. Install an addon
8. Advanced options
9. Troubleshooting

You may also watch this video tutorial

For a more comprehensive tuturial visit the Tutorials page.

I. Check if your system meets the requirements

Please click on Support page to start gathering the information about your system (like OS, web software, PHP version, other resources). It will display a table of the required PHP extensions (eg. curl, safe_mode, etc) and also will explain why they are used. Make sure they are tagged as OK/enabled (green color) with one exception - safe_mode - that could be red.

II. Configure the global options

Before you do anything else make sure your set the following global options:

1. go to the WP backup job tab then set:
   • either the backup name or the backup prefix
   • the temporary working directory (make sure you are read/write access)
   • your email address (where the notification will be sent)

III. Define the backup job

A backup job represents the totality of those options that together instruct the application what to backup, how to backup and where to copy the backup. Normally these steps should be done only once (at install time) but also when you decide to change the backup source/destination:

1. go to the WP files tab then set the directory you want to backup
2. go to the WP database tab then check the Enabled checkbox
3. go to the Copy backup to tab and for each destination (aka target) where you want to store your backup archives make sure that you:
   • check the Enabled checkbox to enable the usage of that target or uncheck it if you don`t want to use it
   • set the appropiate connection parameters (if any) and more important the remote directory where the backups will be stored
   • set the backup retention time

IV. Run the backup job

Once your global options and the backup job are defined all that must to be done is the backup itself. It can be launched manually (one-click backup) or it can be scheduled to be automatically executed (by WordPress or your OS) at a specific time in the future:

• run the backup at your request
  1. go to the WP backup job tab and click the button Run Backup Now
  2. watch its progress; a scrollable window will be shown containing the job events and messages
• run the backup automatically at a scheduled time
  1. go to the Backup Scheduler tab and then select the child tab, depending on what scheduler you want to use:
     • WP-Cron
       1. check the Enable scheduler checkbox then select one of those predefined schedule options and set the Next run datetime value (in the past if you want to start immediately, otherwise in the future)
     • OS-Cron (requires the Schedule the WP backup via OS addon)
       1. check the Enable scheduler checkbox then copy the command-line (that was automatically created) content in clipboard
       2. open your OS scheduler (eg. Task Scheduler in Windows, cron on Linux or something similar in your web hoster cPanel), set the appropiate execution time/frequency and nonetheless the command to be run as the command you copied earlier in clipboard

V. Restore a backup copy

If you are using the WordPress version of this software (WP MyBackup) then restoring a backup can be done as described below:

V.1.1 Full restore

1. restore the last successful backup created with WP MyBackup
   1. go to Dashboard tab
   2. if a completed (ie. successful) backup is found then a "Last completed backup" widget should be visible; click the

      Restore Backup #XXX

      , where XXX is the last successful backup job Id
2. restore a backup stored externally created (or not) by WP MyBackup
   1. go to Dashboard tab
   2. drag & drop (or

      Select

      ) some backup archives into the dotted area shown on the dashboard page, with regards to:
      • supported formats (EXT) are: tar|gz|bz2

      • gz|bz2

        archives are expected to be tar'ed before compression (ie. .tar.

        gz|bz2

        )
      • MySQL database backup archive should have the following pattern: [a-z0-9\-\.].sql.EXT
      • WordPress files backup archive should have the following pattern: [a-z0-9\-\.]-XXX.EXT, where XXX={}
      • The uploaded file size should not be larger than your php.ini |. Your current php.ini is configured such that the uploaded file size cannot be larger than 2.00 MiB. You may overcome this by using Upload files in chunks option (see Expert settings).
   3. click the

      Restore N files

      button under the selected file area (N is the number of selected files)

If not using the WP version and don`t have installed the Restore Addon then restoring the backup assumes that (i) you have access to your website filesystem and/or MySQL database and (ii) you have a minimal knowledge of using SSH/FTP/mysqldump/phpMyAdmin or similar utilities that basically allow you to copy the files from your local system to the remote system.

V.2.1 Full restore

1. download the backup archive from the remote storage location
2. extract to a temporary directory the backup archive(s)
3. connect via SSH/FTP/whatever the remote location and copy whatever file you want from the temporary directory to the remote location where your website files are located
4. in case you want to restore also the database content then you may use an application like phpMyAdmin (see this video tutorial) to import the .sql file from the *.sql.* archive extracted earlier at the temporary location.

V.2.2 Differential restore (requires Differential backup)

1. find the last full backup (F) you are interested in
2. find the last differenatial backup (D) created between the date of (F) and the date of the next full backup
3. follow the same steps mentioned at V.2.1 for all found archives

V.2.3 Incremental restore (requires Incremental backup)

1. find the last full backup (F) you are interested in
2. find ALL the incremental backups (I) created between the date of (F) and the date of the next full backup
3. follow the same steps mentioned at V.2.1 for all found archives

V.2.4 Restore via Addon

VI. Define multiple backup jobs

This assumes that you have installed the Advanced backup Wizard addon.

Sometimes you want to create different backup jobs for different purposes. For instance a job that will pack your images into a ZIP archive then upload it to your Google Drive, another job that will pack with GZIP compression and encrypt your MySQL database and then upload it to your Dropbox drive, a job that will pack with BZip2 compresssion some other directory then upload it to a FTP server.

1. go to the Backup jobs++ tab then start defining a new job by clicking the Add new button
2. select the target type (ie. disk,FTP,Dropbox,etc) and also set a short description of your job (like "domain.com PNGs @ Dropbox")
3. set the job global options (like I above)
4. set the job backup source (like II.1 above)
5. eventually set the job MySQL source (like II.2 above)
6. set the job destination folder (like II.3 above)
7. eventually schedule the job (like III above)

VII. Install an addon

The WP MyBackup Pro version allows you to extend its core functionality by installing any of those 20+ available addons.The installation procees is straightforward:

1. Install one or multiple addons at once (multiple available on HTML5 compatible browsers only)
   1. go to the License tab and expand the Export settings panel
   2. click the Browse/Choose file button then select the addon files (*.tar.bz2)
   3. click the Install Add-on button
2. Install multiple addons at once on non-HTML5 compatible browsers only
   1. copy the addon files (*.tar.bz2) to the ROOT/dropin/ folder
   2. go to the License tab
   3. the Addons Drop-in page should be shown; follow the instructions there

VIII. Advanced options

By default the WP MyBackup settings are tunned to fit everyone expectations. However, you might want to tune these settings in order to fit your needs. Here are few options you way want to consider:

1. WP backup job Expert settings
   • Use file relative path (important for restoring the backup at other location)
   • Script memory limit (inline with hosting limitations)
   • Max. execution time (inline with hosting limitations)
   • CPU throttling (overcomes `CPU Limit Exceeded`)
2. WP files Expert settings
   • Do not compress files by extension (spare the CPU when possible)
   • Exclude files by extension (eg. do not backup some huge files)
   • Exclude file links

VIII. Troubleshooting

Hopefully you will never encounter a problem thus you will never have to follow the instructions below. But we live in an imperfect world where imperfect people (like me) write imperfect software (like this one) so probably this chapter cannot be avoided forever.

What to do when something doesn`t work as expected:

1. You are not the only one who might encounter a specific issue => check the FAQ. If it does not help then continue to read below.
2. make sure that your system meets the requirements
3. if the application provides an error message or any other kind of output that seems related to the problem you encountered try to follow the instruction shown there (if any)
4. check again the global options and the job settings; make sure they have the expected values
5. if the application shows a warning/error message (see example) that you suspect to be the root of the problem then we have to bring the heavy artillery:
   1. go to the Support tab then in the Expert settings panel make sure you set ON the following options:
      • Debug trace ON
      • Curl debug ON
      • Statistics debug ON
      • SMTP debug ON
      • Restore debug ON
      and unset/uncheck the following options:
      • Yayui optimize ON
   2. Re-execute the job or whatever cause the problem you are debugging then check the following log(s) in the Log files tab:
      • if the problem seems to be related to network connection/authentication then check the Curl Debug log
      • if the problem seems to be related to email (eg. email not sent) then check the SMTP Debug log
      • if the problem seems to be related to some options not saved you may check the Trace Action log; this log traces all requests (like save, tab changed, etc) sent from your browser to this application; if you are a (former) sysadmin or coder you might eventually hack the problem
      • if the problem seems to be more an unexpected warning/error thrown by the PHP/web server then probably something is rotten in the state of Denmark (I live in Sweden so I know what I am talking about). If that`s the case then open a support ticket by following the instruction found at the Support Center. Make sure you have downloaded all the log files mentioned earlier together with the Jobs log and the Full log. Moreover, the information provided by the Check PHP setup button (in the Support tab) is also very useful when open a helpdesk ticket.

As a software developer I did helpdesk, troubleshooting and support (level 1 to 3) for many, many years now. Hopefully I can help you finding the cause and fix the problem.