I realize this is an old topic BUT it is still open ended.  We know that Invision has no interest in helping us backup or restore our site using a solution they provide so we are on our own.

What does everyone use successfully to backup your Invision Community site and Restore?  Don't say cloud since its stupid expensive and you are limited.  Using a Hosting Provider you have so many more options then cloud.

Let's keep this strictly... How do you Backup your site and then How do you Restore your site?  Both but include Files and Database but not required to restore both.

CPanel SUCKS for backups..  must be better options that don't cost a fortune.

I have moved this to it's own topic as it is no longer a "Feature Suggestion" but rather it's own self-hosted discussion.

 

CPanel SUCKS for backups

What's that saying "its the best thing since sliced bread!"

I have used an FTP program to download the files which takes ages but using File Manger in CPanel, right click on the Forums folder then Compress gives you zipped up full file backup of the all the files.  Or even quicker open the Forums folder select the lot then exclude the Uploads folder for an event quicker backup with all the uploaded images/video etc. which is enough for a restore after a failed upgrade.

As for database, its even easier.  Select Backup from CPanel then click on the database you want to backup, soon you get a file downloading (a compressed SQL file) of the whole database.  Easy to restore too, just use the "Restore a MySQL Database Backup" from the same place.  You can also use the same file with phpMyAdmin and import it to a new database to give you a copy.

Because I know my way around this tool, a full back up before an update takes minutes.

I suggest you take another look at CPanel...

Personally I'm using CiC now so that I don't have to worry about it anymore.  

But for sites in AWS, I utilized its backup capabilities to backup both my web servers and database server.  

Prior to that, I utilized DirectAdmin as a control panel and used its built in daily backup system.  

I also have a Synology SAN at home, so I used it to make an offsite weekly backup using ActiveBackup to rsync the site once a week.  I also had a cron script that exported a copy of the database on a weekly basis (overwriting the old version) that ran an hour before my ActiveBackup job ran so that I would have a recent export of the database as well.  

That gave me a backup local on the server that was done daily and a weekly backup that was stored off-site (at home).  

 

 

What's that saying "its the best thing since sliced bread!"

I have used an FTP program to download the files which takes ages but using File Manger in CPanel, right click on the Forums folder then Compress gives you zipped up full file backup of the all the files.  Or even quicker open the Forums folder select the lot then exclude the Uploads folder for an event quicker backup with all the uploaded images/video etc. which is enough for a restore after a failed upgrade.

As for database, its even easier.  Select Backup from CPanel then click on the database you want to backup, soon you get a file downloading (a compressed SQL file) of the whole database.  Easy to restore too, just use the "Restore a MySQL Database Backup" from the same place.  You can also use the same file with phpMyAdmin and import it to a new database to give you a copy.

Because I know my way around this tool, a full back up before an update takes minutes.

I suggest you take another look at CPanel...

Thanks RIchard for the details and yea I'm familar with this but who has time to do this manually every day?  I know manual is "okay" but seriously if this could be done automatically then we would have a winner but until then its almost impossible to do when you host many sites.

Wordpress has several awesome choices that I have used previously that backs your site up and sends the files and database off to your choice, dropbox, google drive, ftp site, etc.. and restore you can do with just a base wordpress site.  I know we all have a choice of which CMS we want to use and some are stronger than others.  I really enjoy Invision Community and have been with them for a long long time and I invest MUCH money building applications for my business on Invision (not any other CMS) so its unfortunate that an automated backup solution doesn't exist.

You’re asking IPB to solve your hosting issues. Not a great use of resources. If your host does not offer backups, find one that does or use one a million systems that already exist. 

Why should the software focus on something that is literally commoditized already and that they can’t bring more value than what already exists.   

Those Wordpress backup add-ons sound great, maybe an opportunity for the IPS developers.

 

Personally I'm using CiC now so that I don't have to worry about it anymore.  

But for sites in AWS, I utilized its backup capabilities to backup both my web servers and database server.  

Prior to that, I utilized DirectAdmin as a control panel and used its built in daily backup system.  

I also have a Synology SAN at home, so I used it to make an offsite weekly backup using ActiveBackup to rsync the site once a week.  I also had a cron script that exported a copy of the database on a weekly basis (overwriting the old version) that ran an hour before my ActiveBackup job ran so that I would have a recent export of the database as well.  

That gave me a backup local on the server that was done daily and a weekly backup that was stored off-site (at home).  

 

what is CiC?  I don't want to worry about backup anymore.

 

what is CiC?  I don't want to worry about backup anymore.

Community in the Cloud. Our Cloud service 🙂 

Thanks Jim, I just moved IPS from the outstanding LiquidWeb to AWS myself and using JetBackups to backup my site hourly.  I found a solution..  pretty easy to restore down to the file if need be.

• AWS Lightsail
• cPanel/WHM
• JetBackups

Again thank you everyone for the feedback.

Edited January 22, 20232 yr by Cowboy Denny

Something with the user registration broke on our website after we upgraded from IPS 4.7.5 to 4.7.6.

I'm proud to say that our host hostingsupremo.com just performed a successful JetBackup restore for us!

 

Something with the user registration broke on our website after we upgraded from IPS 4.7.5 to 4.7.6.

I'm proud to say that our host hostingsupremo.com just performed a successful JetBackup restore for us!

JetBackup addon for cPanel only being $6/mo isn't bad at all for what it can do.  When you pair it with AWS S3 bucket its not bad since you don't get charged for what you put in the S3 bucket, just when you pull stuff out and I typically (knock on wood) don't have to restore often.