WP-DBManager Plugin - Database Backups

WP-DBManager Plugin from Lester Chan, is a Wordpress plugin that is a real life saver, once setup, it will backup & optimize your blog database on auto pilot.

We all know what it’s like, we’ll think about backing up the database, because we know it is the most crucial part of our blog, yet as soon as we sit at the PC we get distracted !

We start checking stats, checking adsense, checking emails & before we know it we have completely forgotten about backing up the database yet again!

I did an article back at the begining of October, listing what I felt was the top 12 plugins for use on your blog ! However I have just discovered another plugin that should really be crowned king of them all.

For some of us forgetting to backup our database  happens just once too often, simply by installing a plugin it can cause our database to become corrupted & without a backup we are finished !

Don’t Become Another Statistic

Don’t become one of the many statistics we read about on the net, begging for someone to wave a magic wand & give them back a functional database, if they had not been so easily distracted  then they would not find  themselves in this situation in the first place..?

Act Now To Safeguard Your Database

So here’s your chance to sort this problem out once & for all, follow these instructions & ensure you always have not 1, but numerous backups of your database readily at hand, should the worst ever happen ! This will take you 10 minutes to setup, but once installed & tested you can breathe a sigh of relief as you have finally taken the right steps to ensure you never lose your database.

WP Database Manager

WP-DBManager manages your Wordpress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup, drop / empty tables & run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of  backing up and also optimizing of database.

Installation

Simply download the plugin to your computer then using your WP Admin Panel, upload to your plugin directory & then activate.

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Ok now as soon as you activate this plugin, you will get the above warning flash up on your screen, this is basically telling you that the directory folder where the plugin is going to store your database backups is not secure !

How To Secure

Using your FTP client browse to /wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager/  in this folder you will find a text document ” htaccess.txt ” highlight this file & then select edit;

you will see that the file contains the following text…..

<Files ~ “.*..*”>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

Replace this text with the text below (Replacing xxx with your own IP address)

<Files ~ “.*..*”>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
</Files>

Close the file & save the changes when asked to do so by your FTP client.

Now highlight the file again & this time select ” rename ” change the file name from ” htaccess.txt ” to ” .htaccess ” and save again. Finally move this file to /wp-content/backup-db/. Once moved refresh your screen and the red security warning should now have disappeared !

Testing

Now using your Wordpress Admin Panel, scroll down to the options tab for the WP-DBManager (near the bottom of the left hand column), then create your first backup by following the instructions on screen.

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Now select Manage Backups from the options panel & you should get a screen as in the image above..? At this point simply check the email address is correct, select the backup you just created & then click email & if all is setup correctly it will tell you that the backup you selected has been successfully emailed to the address on the screen.

Scheduling Your Backups

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Finally select ” DB Options ” from the options menu, scroll to almost the bottom of the page & this is where you will set up your scheduling of backups & database optimization as in the image above. Obviously there is little point in backing up your database every 3 days, if you only write an article or post once every 2 weeks or once /month, therefore use the options to schedule whatever is suitable for your blog !

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The final test is to check your email address after a couple of days to ensure that

(A) The backups are indeed being created.

(B) They are being sent to your email address.

You will no doubt have noticed whilst going through the setup procedure, that there is also an option to set how many database backups will be stored in /wp-content/backup-db/ before they start to be overwritten. The default value here is 10, which means that in my case having a backup every 3 days, ensures that I get a full months backup of my database before the files are overwritten.

Steve Nickson | Create Your Badge