Backing Up the Form Tools Database

[jlkane]

Is backing up the FT database -- and recovering from backup -- a completely straightforward process? Or might a "dump and restore" module be called for?

(I've used such a module in conjunction with the excellent CMSMS -- it makes backup and recovery drop-dead simple.)

Short of a module, do the basics of the process bear an explanation in the Documentation?

Jim

[Ben]

Yeah, this is one of those things that's been on my List o' Things To Do for so long it's kind of embarrassing.

Dumping and restoring the DB *is* simple, if you use a tool like phpMyAdmin. That lets you download the entire database whenever you want. Recovering from that backup is just a matter of deleting the existing tables and running the SQL. I actually do it all the time to create identical copies of my Form Tools databases for testing on different systems.

As for documentation, I've never done it yet because I've always planned to write a module to do this... just haven't found the time yet.

Good question!

- Ben

[jlkane]

Thanks Ben. I'll figure out the right checkboxes to tick in phpMyAdmin. ;-)

The backup module in CMSMS simply scripts mysqldump behind the scenes, but I *love* that it makes backing up drop-dead simple, so I can hand that responsibility off to a client (who's already earned the freedom to update his or her site through the CMS system). Makes 'em fully independent, and I'd love to be able to do that for a site that depends on FT as well. I think the CMSMS backup module would be a perfect model for you to emulate.

Jim

[KZeni]

Don't intend to bump this topic, but it's too close to what I'm asking to create a new one.

If you have adding dumping & restoring the database on the todo list, I was wondering if you have any intent to include a cron(?) job for scheduling DB backups to be emailed to a certain address. I use the wp-db-backup plugin for WordPress to get weekly database backups emailed to me so I can assure clients that we have their sites backed up.

I just had a client accidentally delete a form submission and asked if we have a backup of the information, and we hadn't made a backup of their database yet so thankfully we had the email sent to us with all of their initial information. That being said, scheduled database backups would be a potential life-saver and a big selling point.

[Ben]

Agreed, thanks for the post. I'd very much like it for my own installations.

I've been toying with two different solutions to this:
1. Write a simple, backup-entire-form module that creates snapshots of the form database, with the option to reset to an earlier version.
2. Write a Wordpress-like "submission history" module that keeps track of every change to each form submission & show a list of submission changes at the bottom of the page to let you revert to any earlier version.

I think between them, all bases would be covered.

I have a lot of other work to complete first, but I'll definitely tackle this next year.

- Ben

[Alexis]

have you tried automated mysql backups ?

http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

[seidzade]

very simple solution is can be implemented by using mysqldump and crontab ...

example of backup script, will backup few tables and full db(table6) :

Code:

#! /bin/bash

sqldump="/usr/bin/mysqldump"
db="formtools"
table1="ft_form_2"
table2="ft_form_12"
table3="ft_form_2_history"
table4="ft_form_12_history"
table5="ft_forms"
table6=""

for i in "$table1" "$table2" "$table3" "$table4" "$table5" "$table6"; do

                $sqldump -u [user] -p[password] $db $i > /backup/full_$i.sql

done

and add to crontab, will run at 23:00 every day :

0 23 * * * /[path_to_script]/[script_name] >/dev/null 2>/dev/null

[Joe]

Thanks for the suggestion!

Cheers,

Joe