Free WordPress Backup Plugin

Updraft.  I use it on all of the sites I work on.  You can choose what to backup and where.  It also offers a really necessary feature, plugin reversal.  It can get you out of a plugin disaster pretty fast.

OK, I'll check it out. I should have provided more detail, my present need is to make a copy of a site & install it in a different server directory. I presume I can back it up, then load it into a different folder? Or not?

Thanks

Great, I will check it out. I think I remember that, I just haven't worked on any Wordpress site for over 6 months.

Read each instruction carefully.  I think I recall that there is one setting that can be confusing.  However, this plugin is really helpful when you need to move a site to another server.  It works great.... as long as the site is not huge.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator works well.

This plugin is fairly lightweight + also works around many poorly configured PHP installs.

File Backup Tip: Almost any backup plugin will work, free or paid... if... a site is backup friendly.

Converse is true also. Sites poorly designed or rather data dropped onto sites organically, rather than being designed eventually will cause most backup plugins to break.

The big trick here is to ensure backups run quickly, which means you setup your own custom CDN host, like cdn.foo.com, where all large files live, like large PDFs, large images, large data files, all audios/videos.

This keeps your file set to backup small.

Database Backup Tip: Database size comes into play also. Avoid nonsense plugins like Pretty Links which can produce many Gigabytes of daily data, which is near impossible to backup with most hosting PHP settings. The problem with Pretty Links, along with other similar redirect-ish plugins, is the way they log data. Avoid any plugin that injects log data into a database. This log data is already available in your Apache log files, which is where this data best stay.

Robert Garland,

So I figured out all the stuff to download a package, have in on my local PC. I see the steps to upload it, but I'm concerned about the database.

I am going to upload it to the same server into a subfolder where the live site exists. For example, live site is www.xyz.com, I want to load into www.xyz.com/test

Since the MySQL databases are not instance dependent, I'd like to have the database used by /test as a different one, because I will make some changes to it that do NOT exist in the live site.

The documentation I see seems to assume you are uploading to a new server.

Can you advise?

Thanks

Using nested WordPress installs produces complexities I'm unwilling to tolerate, so I never do this.

You can do this + you'll just have to keep every thing straight.

I use a naming convention for my project databases by naming databases as...

$project-$site-[-$host]

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So in your case, I'd name your databases...

rk1-xyz
rk1-xyz-test

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So one database for your production version + one database for your test version.

WordPress requires you use 2x databases in this case. If you use only one, there will be trouble... as your sites will never work correctly + you'll likely end up with database corruption.

Uploading is the same as copying.

In your case, you'll just create a new folder somewhere for your test site + copy the .zip file + .php installer file into this new directory.

For ongoing backups, especially if you have multiple sites, I find ManageWP to be excellent (managewp.com, with the ManageWP Worker plugin). It takes remote incremental backups (monthly for free, or daily for US$2/month). Remote means you're protected from the site being damaged by malware or data loss on the hosting service, and incremental means you're not impacting bandwidth much after the initial backup.

You can't clone a site to a new location unless you purchase the premium option, but you can restore a site using the free option. Billing is done by the day, so if you use the premium service for just a day while you're working on a site, it's just a few cents.

You can also use the ManageWP dashboard to pick and choose plugins and themes to update, which is great for managing multiple sites. I use it with about 70 sites, and it saves a lot of hassle.

The issue I ANTICIPATE at the moment is this.

I have the "package" from the duplicator plugin on my PC. I need to upload it to my host server under a subfolder.

The current live Wordpress site is running there. I need to have the database from the UPLOADED package be different, I don't see how to do that since I am assuming the duplicated one is just that, a duplicate & if I upload the package it will try to install the duplicated one ON TOP OF the live one with unknown consequences. I noticed in the install folder there is a .sql file, so perhaps I could manually edit that but I'm averse to doing that because I could make a mistake with unknown consequences.

This is the issue I am trying to communicate on EE but I don't think I have done that yet.

Can anyone advise on this SPECIFIC issue?

Thank you.

To all,

I ran the duplicator, then installed on new location, everything went fine until I got to logging in through wp-login.php. It produces the attached, which of course is total crap, the from site works perfectly in Chrome as do many other sites that require Cookies.

How do I get around this?

Thanks
cookies_blocked.PNG

Have you tried forcing a refresh of the page (ctrl-F5 in Chrome or FF) ?

Thanks Terry.

The host suggested using https (the site is secure) and that worked.

Odd that we don't have to do that for the live site.

Ha, I was just writing a comment to suggest that! Glad you got it solved :-)