Preparing a site for backup / shutdown

[Bramah]

A technical / trade forum I administer has been effectively killed off by social media / lack of interest after 10 years.

I am in the process of preparing it for shutdown / backup.

So, can anyone advise please how to :

Delete all users private messages.

Delete all 'reactions' to posts.

Delete all logs.

Any other suggestions to ensure the database is as 'clean' as possible prior to switch off.

Also - once done is it possible to 'pause' the licence here, obviously I'm not going to renew or update it.

I hope that the wheel will turn again in the future and there will once again be a need for such a site, but for now it's over.

[steve00]

If not wanting to use IPB at all then just delete the installation folder and database

If want to re-install from scratch at later date then just re-install from scratch

Unless am misreading your question

[Makoto]

Yeah, just nuke the database and website.

If you're unsure how to do this, contact your hosting provider and ask them to do it for you; though, if you simply suspend your hosting services with them, they'll likely delete your database and files regardless.

[DesignzShop]

If by chance you're using cpanel you can pull a complete backup and save the gzip. Then that way you can easily reinstall the site if you decide to revive it.

[AndyF]

Regarding licence, you can't really 'pause' it as such. You can remove any CC details on file and just let it "expire"  , with it expired you lose access to downloads of versions of IPS and possibly the Marketplace too (not sure on the last part as its changed a bit)

Generally speaking with just a few rare exceptions you can usually just pay a renew fee to re-activate it and get download access again to the newest version. The 'exceptions' are a bit complex (and possibly boring) so I'm not going to try to type them up here for those and a few more reasons! If you're in any doubt simply ask in a ticket in the Client Area as the answering technician can lookup the account specifics and tell you with certainty the details.

I'm assuming you're "self hosted" , if you're CiC (Cloud) based with IPS when it all expires it will be removed after a certain time period as they provide the hosting for you in this case.

 

I need clarification on "clean", are you wanting to keep users / topics / posts etc etc ?

[Bramah]

Yes, I want to keep all the users, posts etc but delete extraneous items such as PM's etc. I will then backup the site and archive it for possible future ressurection.

[JimBurnett]

what do you mean by this?

On 1/1/2019 at 10:37 AM, DesignzShop said:

cpanel you can pull a complete backup and save the gzip

that sounds like something I would be interested in...

[DesignzShop]

11 minutes ago, JimBurnett said:

what do you mean by this?

that sounds like something I would be interested in...

Documentation for you 🙂 Pretty easy and quick to do one. Those version instructions are good for any later version of cpanel. Basically you just log into cpanel and select backup then select what you want to back up. You can do a site, multiple sites and depending on what your host allows even more detailed backups. You can also just do a database backup too 🙂
https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/74Docs/Backup+for+cPanel

As a side note the backup comes in a file and you just upload that file in cpanel and walla, everything's restored with one upload and working again in seconds..

 

A video also

 

[JimBurnett]

Thanks for sharing the info.   

I thought cpanel was something built into the IPS software.  

I was hoping that there was a way to do a backup/restore from the normal admin control panel that comes with the forums software.   This looks interesting, but I would probably have to go through some red tape to get my company to approve it.

Thank you for the quick response!  I appreciate it.  🙂