This tutorial covers the following:
How to Create a Full Backup of SocialEngine
How to Restore a Full Backup of SocialEngine
Further reading:
How to Install and Upgrade SocialEngine Website
SocialEngine Configuration Tutorial
SocialEngine Management Tutorial
How to Create a Full Backup of SocialEngine
Generating a backup of your SocialEngine website is important. It will allow you to restore your website to a working state if something goes wrong with it. Also, the generating of such a backup is a must when you make major changes on your website, such as installing a theme or an addon.
To Backup your SocialEngine website, you will need to:
Step 1: Backup the Files
Step 2: Backup the Database
Step 1 Backup the Files
You can create a backup of your SocialEngine files using your favourite FTP client or directly via the File Manager service within your cPanel account. The important thing is to download the entire directory, where your SocialEngine is installed. Usually, this is the public_html/ directory of your account, but be careful if the script is installed on a subdomain or a subfolder.
Download Files
There are two ways of downloading your files from the server - using an FTP client, following our FTP tutorial, or downloading directly through your cPanel account > File Manager, following our cPanel tutorial.
Further reading:
How to Install and Upgrade SocialEngine Website
SocialEngine Configuration Tutorial
SocialEngine Management Tutorial
Step 2 Backup the Database
To create a backup of your database, you first need to see it’s name. The easiest way for that is to review the main configuration file of your SocialEngine installation, which will provide more details on that.
Configuration file
If you are not aware of the database name on your SocialEngine installation, you can check that information by reviewing our tutorial on how to locate and edit the SocialEngine configuration file.
Once you have the name of your database, you need to log into your cPanel account. Then locate the Database section and click on the phpMyAdmin service.
You will be presented with a list of all databases on your account on the left-side of the screen. Locate and select the one set on your SocialEngine website.
All of the tables on your database will be displayed. This allows you to review or edit them. However, to generate a backup dump file of your database, simply click on the Export button at the top menu.
You will have the option to generate a quick backup of your database or a custom one, selecting only the databases you want. Choose quick as this will generate a complete backup of your database. Then click on the Go button.
Further reading:
How to Install and Upgrade SocialEngine Website
SocialEngine Configuration Tutorial
SocialEngine Management Tutorial
How to Restore a Full Backup of SocialEngine
To restore a full backup of your SocialEngine website may be necessary if something went wrong and you want to get your website back to a working state. The actual process involves three steps and we will go through them for a better understanding.
Create a Backup
It is recommended to create SocialEngine backup, before making major changes on your website. This allows you to restore it to a fully operational state if something goes wrong.
The steps to restore a SocialEngine website are:
Step 1: Restore the Files
Step 2: Restore the Database
Step 3: Link the Files and Database
Step 1 Restore the Files
The first step is to upload the backup files of your SocialEngine website. This can be done using your favourite FTP client or directly via the File Manager service within your cPanel account. The important thing to consider is the location, where you will upload your backup files. Usually, this would be the public_html/ directory of your account if you wish to access your restored website via the primary domain of your account. However, if you are using a subdomain or a subfolder, make sure that you review the correct location first.
Upload Files
There are two ways of uploading your files to the server - using an FTP client, following our FTP tutorial, or uploading directly through your cPanel account > File Manager, following our cPanel tutorial.
Further reading:
How to Install and Upgrade SocialEngine Website
SocialEngine Configuration Tutorial
SocialEngine Management Tutorial
Step 2 Restore the Database
The next step is to restore the database of your website. For that purpose, you need a clean new database set on your account and a user assigned to it with all privileges.
MySQL Configuration
You can create a new database and a user assigned to it via cPanel. Simply follow our MySQL Wizard tutorial for information on that.
Once you have an empty database on your account, you will have to upload the backup of your SocialEngine database to the new one, just created above. To achieve that, once again access the home of your cPanel account. Locate the Databases section and then click on the phpMyAdmin service.
You will be presented with a list of all databases on your account. Choose the new one we have created and click on it.
The database will be empty, with no tables on it. Select the Import button at the top menu.
Select the dump backup file of your SocialEngine database from your local computer. Then click on the Go button to start the import.
Step 3 Link the Files and Database
Up until this moment, you will have a location on your account that contains the files of your SocialEngine backup. You will also have a new database, which has a backup of your SocialEngine database imported to it. Now, it is time to complete the whole restore process and link them together.
To complete that, you need to locate and edit the configuration file of your SocialEngine website. In it, you need to enter the values of the new database, the new user and the password it is using. Those details were created in the previous step so you make sure that you enter them correctly.
Configuration file
You need to edit the SocialEngine configuration file on your account and correct the details for your database. For details on that, we suggest reviewing our SocialEngine configuration file tutorial.
Once you complete that, simply access your website via your favourite web browser and it should load it normally.
Why It Is Important to Back Up your Website
Building and promoting a website is a huge investment in terms of time and money. If something goes wrong and you don’t have a backup of your website, you will have to start again from the scratch.
Simply said, not having a backup of your website is like walking a tightrope without a safety net. In just a matter of seconds, all you have built can be gone forever leaving you with dramatic consequences.
According to a survey by CloudTweak, downtime costs an average of $26 billion a year in lost revenue and an average enterprise loses about $686.000 for every hour their website is down.
Probably your website is not even close to those massive figures but that still gives you an idea of the damage you may suffer in terms of money if something does go wrong with your website. Then take into account the impact downtime has on your visitors. If they try to visit your website and cannot access it, this will negatively affect your reputation and credibility.
Another aspect that must not be overlooked is the effect downtime has on your website’s ranking. Once your website pages are lost beyond recovery, all your money and energy spent on SEO optimization will be gone. Even if you rebuild your website, you will once again have to start from scratch to regain your previous ranking on Google and that could take months if not years.
Therefore, if something happens to your website, you need to act quickly. The only way to do that is to have a backup of your website that allows you to recover all your work in just a few minutes.
Unfortunately, the chances that your website will experience problems are extremely high. Threats are always around the corner and may come in different forms:
Website Hackers. Most often we associate hackers with people who try to access a system to steal money or access private information. However, many hackers may enter your website and crash it just for the sake of causing trouble or simply to prove how skillful they are. Once your data has been violated, there is no way to recover it unless you have a backup. Unfortunately, website hackers are mushrooming and your website may experience several attacks a day.
Malware and viruses. The Internet is full of malware and viruses and new ones are discovered on a daily basis. You may get them in countless ways, even while performing tasks that are usually considered safe. Sometimes they do not crash your website entirely but will make it act strangely affecting, therefore, user experience and performance. To clean your system files may take time and can be a daunting task. Restoring a clean backup of your website is by far the easiest and safest solution.
Hardware problems. When you deal with machines, something can always go wrong. Your hosting server can catch on fire, crash, or something else can happen. A good hosting company usually saves a backup of your files. However, never assume third parties will always take care of your business as you do. Having your own updated backup will give you better peace of mind.
Human mistakes. Deleting a file or clicking the wrong button is an accident that happens more often that you can imagine. The chances of human error increases, even more, when more people work on a website. However, this is not a major problem if you have a backup ready.
Updates go wrong. Several platforms like WordPress, regularly release updates to improve its performance and the security of your website. Unfortunately, it may happen that the fix becomes the problem and once updated your website doesn’t work correctly anymore or crashed completely. If that happens, you would be very grateful to have a backup handy.
These are just some of the most common reason why your website may experience downtime. Sooner or later you will have to come to terms with at least one of these accidents occurring, and when it does happen you must be ready to act quickly.
How Often Should You Backup Your Website
There is no straightforward answer to this question. It mainly depends on the type of website you are running.
For instance, if you only add new content a few times a month, you may backup your website less frequently. For instance, you may decide to perform a backup every time you upload some new content.
However, if you run a website where you regularly work on the content and have a lot of interaction with your users, you must make daily backups.
As a general rule, the more often you backup your website the better. As you will soon see, backing up a website is not a difficult or time-consuming task. Therefore, having a daily or weekly backup schedule is a savvy practice that will spare you a lot of pain down the road.
How To Backup Your Website
Before considering how to back up your website, we need to say a few words about where to store the backup files.
We always recommend to have the backup files stored in more than one place and to use at least one cloud service. Saving the files on your machine or on an external hard drive is a good practice but it is not risk-free. In the case of a hardware crash, you may lose all your precious files.
Therefore, besides storing the backup on a hard drive, upload the backup to at least one cloud service. That will keep your files safe and you will have access to them whenever you need.
Once decided where to store the files, you now have to decide how you want to backup your website. You have 3 main options;
1. Backup your website using cPanel. The cPanel is a user-friendly dashboard provided by many host providers. From the cPanel, you can makes changes to your websites' files and one of the preset functions is to backup of your website.
All you have to do is to navigate to the menu “Files” and click on “Backup”. You will see two options available. You can choose full-backup, commonly used when you have to transfer your website to a different hosting service, or partial backup, suitable for restoring your database on your current host.
Choose the option you prefer and click on “Generate Backup”. Once the back up is completed all you have to do is go to the section “Backups Available for Download”. Look for the file with the latest backup, download it to your machine, and don’t forget to upload a copy to the cloud.
2. If you are using WordPress, your backup duties are facilitated by the many plugins available. Some of the most popular are UpdraftPlus, BackupBuddy, and Snapshot Pro.
All you have to do is install the plugin you prefer, adjust the settings according to your liking and the system will perform the backup on your behalf.
3. Manual Backup. This solution is more complicated and it requires some expertise. However, this backup gives you more control over your files.
To start the manual backup, you need to access your website files on your web server. You can do that using the file manager on cPanel. Once you are in the website files, you need to look for the root folder labeled “public_html” and download a copy of it. If your website is quite large, you must also download the database. To do that you need to install the phpMyAdmin software and perform the download from there. Once the download is completed, do not forget to upload a copy to the cloud.
As you can see, the manual backup is less straightforward than the previous ones. Therefore, unless you have the needed skills, we advise you to ask for the support of a professional website maintenance and support service.
