Software to automatic backup / disaster recovery CMS websites

Question

I run a lot of local business websites, a lot of them are on external, cheap servers (limited transfer, limited script execution time etc.) and owners refuse to pay a lot of money for a proper backup.

From time to time, there is a request like "I clicked something, now it's not working, fix it please". Last backup I have is ex. 1 month old.

What I'm looking for is a solution can:

• backup files from many FTPs (including .php files)
• do it incrementally from FTP (without downloading all files as
  servers have transfer limits)
• backup databases
• store backup for a desired period of time
• is not based on syncing files (so some failure can't be synced to my computer)

Obvious solutions like gzip all the files and send it to external server are too much for these servers.

What I'm trying to achieve is not a 100% disaster proof solution, rather something that speeds up the recovery when somebody "clicks something when adding new gallery".

OS: Windows or Linux (preferably)

Do you know something that fit my needs?

Answer 1

As a lot of providers provide version control utilities on their hosts (your own words), you might need no special software in addition to what's already there:

• set up a cron job to dump database contents. For MySQL databases, it's e.g. the mysqldump utility saving all your databases into text files, which would be very convenient here
• set up a repository (or two) with the version control system, pointing the working directories to your web root and the place of your database dumps
• let the cron job do a commit in both places when the database export is done
• let the cron job remove your DB dump at the end (or at least take other precautions e.g. by file permissions). Especially take care to not have those files inside your web tree, for obvious reasons (content, passwords, configurations) (thanks to gabe3886 for pointing out what I've missed to mention ;)

Now, if you need to restore, you can simply pick the file(s) to restore from the repository. For the database, you could either restore it back to that point – or import the backup to a separate database and pick the tables/records you need.

Answer 2

Since you mentioned that "owners refuse to pay a lot of money", Are they are willing to pay "some money"?

If yes, Codeguard is one solution that could fit your requirement.

It backup incrementally, only transfer files when there are changes. It also backup MySQL database. You can go back in time to download specific file.

The basic plan is $5/month. There are many hosting companies that offer it at discount. If your hosting company has deal, it may cost even less and the backup can be activated in cpanel directly. Fast as easy.

Answer 3

I did some tests and @Izzy's solution, which was very promising, unfortunately isn't the best, for below reasons:

• crons: I was surprised how many "the most cheapest" hostings don't have it,
• version control: a lot of them doesn't support it.

I said lots of them support it, and while it's true it's not enough as some of them don't. I was trying to work it around, but it was getting overly complex and complicated. As every single hosting provides a SQL database and FTP access, I finally sat down and wrote a simple bash script to do the backing up: https://github.com/pp-1/backuper

It's my first bash script, so the code isn't very good, but it does what I need. Feel free to use it, modify or whatever you want.

The idea is very simple: I have always-on home computer and a decent internet connection. I created a Debian VM on it and added cron to start backup every month.

Script configuration and how it works is described in the repo's readme.

Current version has some bugs, the biggest are:

• efficiency: copying a lot of small files isn't very fast
• security: website's access data are in plain text
• error reporting: well, there is none.

Disclaimer: remember what this script is designed to do: backup websites for custumers who are not willing to pay for it, just for my own comfort to fix their websites faster if they break it. It's not designed to be bulletproof and it's not. It not very trustworthy (ex. it won't resume after crash or power outage).