Site Related > General Site
about the forum downtime / etc
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Carl:
Recently our host lost two of the databases on the site, supposedly due to some file system errors. Unfortunately one of them wasn't the lyrics archive, which due to lack of updates I had a proper backup of.
The last time I did a sql dump of the forum was when I upgraded it last march - and our host at some point stopped doing backups of their own (a feature they used to have, and not something I was notified of). Having to restore from a 5 month old backup, would, in my dayjob, be something that could get me fired. It's sloppy and I have no real excuse other than 1) this is something I don't get paid for, and 2) it's not something I'm really that engaged with anymore.
To complicate matters, our host shifted mysql servers since the last backup, and my backups didn't take. I spent some time fooling with them then handed them back to our host (via Aaron) and they sorted the schema change (I had to add in a missing table but other than that things look fine). I have no idea why they downgraded from an already pretty old mysql server, but I assume they have their reasons.
I imagine fairly soon we'll be migrating to a more reliable/modern setup with standard daily/weekly snapshots, I don't want to have to remember to login to this control panel and take weekly sql dumps and whatnot.
Aaron:
It's been frustrating to say the least. Thanks for getting things backed up in March at the latest. It could have been worse. :-)
If you want I can program myself a weekly reminder to back up the site. But we should discuss what steps to take next. Thanks for your hard work keeping this place together. I'd be lost without you!!
Kevin:
You can always setup an auto backup script that will dump and back up the database nightly, store it on the server, and then prune them after 5 days. That way you always have multiple db backups, just in case. :P
Carl:
We have pretty limited ssh access from what I know (though I honestly haven't tried it on this host), I'm not sure I could run a cron or anything. At some point in the nearish future I'll migrate the site onto an actual VPS (where it'll piggyback with some other sites) instead of a shared host.
Kevin:
This is what I use on U2T and a few other sites I admin http://www.ameir.net/blog/archives/18-MySQL-Backup-to-FTP-and-Email-Shell-Script-for-Cron-v2.1.html
Runs like a champ.
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