In search of the most convenient and cost-free backup solution, I ended up using BackupPC. Sure, it’s not the easiest path to take, but as soon as you manage to install and configure it, you set it and forget it.
BackupPC will keep daily incremental backups of as many servers as you like, it has a web interface which allows you to compare and restore files with a few clicks, it is self-hosted, so you don’t rely on a third party service and, on top of all that, it is free.What you can’t have with BackupPC, thought, is database backups.
To deal with the issue, I took advantage of the awesome WP-CLI and made a small shell script which automatically backs up all the WordPress databases of my server. More specifically, the script will search for all WordPress installations under a given directory and will backup their databases. You can declare more than one such directories and you don’t have to modify the script every time you add a new site. As long as the new site is under a declared parent directory, its database will be backed up. After creating the file, don’t forget to make it executable by doing: chmod +x wp-cli_batch_db_backup.sh. Also, you might want to add this in a cron job for scheduled backups.
Here’s the script:
| #!/bin/bash | |
| # A bash script to batch backup a server's WordPress databases with WP-CLI. It requires WP-CLI, obviously (https://wp-cli.org/). | |
| # The script will search for all WordPress installations under a given directory and will backup their databases. You can declare more than one such directories. | |
| # You don't have to modify the script every time you add a new site. As long as the new site is under a declared parent directory, its database will be backed up. | |
| # After creating the file, don't forget to make it executable by doing: | |
| # chmod +x wp-cli_batch_db_backup.sh | |
| # Also, you might want to add this in a cron job for scheduled backups. | |
| # Set PATH environment variable | |
| export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" | |
| # The base path on your server (you might need to change that) | |
| BASEPATH=/var/www | |
| # We use a function, in order to be able to call it as many times as we want, for as many different directories containing WordPress installations there are on the server | |
| update_databases() { | |
| # Iterate over all folders under the given parent directory | |
| for d in $1/* ; do | |
| # Check if the folder is indeed a WordPress installation by searching for a wp-config.php file | |
| if [ -f $d/wp-config.php ]; then | |
| # Set the name of the backup directory | |
| BACKUPDIR=$d/db-backup | |
| # Create the db-backup directory, if it doesn't exist | |
| [ -d ${BACKUPDIR} ] || sudo mkdir ${BACKUPDIR} | |
| # Backup the database using WP-CLI | |
| sudo /usr/local/bin/wp --path="$d" --allow-root --quiet db export ${BACKUPDIR}/db-backup.sql | |
| # Set folder permissions to prevent direct access to the backup file | |
| chmod -R 770 ${BACKUPDIR} | |
| fi | |
| done | |
| } | |
| # Call the function giving as a parameter the path to the directory containing your WordPress installations (you might need to change that) | |
| update_databases ${BASEPATH} | |
| # If you keep your sites organized in folders or if you have WordPress installations on various different paths on your server, call the function for each parent folder like so: | |
| # update_databases ${BASEPATH}/folder1 | |
| # update_databases ${BASEPATH}/folder2 |