Scheduling backups

Scheduled backups ensure that files are backed up regularly without fail and frees up manual resources to focus on other operational tasks.

When you schedule a backup, you automate the backup to occur regularly at a pre-set date and time. The backup is initiated at the set time without any manual interfacing.

To schedule a backup:

- In the shortcuts area of the Home page
  (Tools section), click Backup/Restore.

- In the Backup/Restore submenu, click Scheduled Backup. The Scheduled Backup window opens.

- Click New. The Backup form opens. Follow the wizard to schedule a backup.

go to wizard Step1 Step2 Step3 Step4

You need to choose the type of backup (Site backup or User backup), enter schedule information, provide necessary FTP account details and other miscellaneous information.

wizard Step1: Choose the type of backup

1. Choose the type of backup, by selecting one of the following option buttons in the Backup area.

1. Site - Backs up your site.

2. Users - Backs up data pertaining to site users.

Click the arrow in the Users list, and choose only one of the following.

- All - To back up all user accounts

- <name of the User> - To back up a particular user. Press
  Ctrl + the left mouse button to select multiple users.

wizard Step2: Enter backup Schedule information

2. Schedule your backup.

Select any one of the following options in the Frequency field.

- Daily - Backs up files daily at the scheduled time

- Weekly - Backs up files weekly at the scheduled time

- Monthly - Backs up files monthly at the scheduled time

3. Click the arrow in the Minutes list, and select a number between 0 and 59.

4. Click the arrow in the Hours list, and select a number between 0 and 23.

5. Click the arrow in the Day of Week list, and select a day between Sunday and Saturday.

6. Click the arrow in the Day of Month list, and select a number between 1 and 31.

7. Important: Selecting a value that is not common to all months in the Day of Month field will fail to run the backup as scheduled on certain months.
   For example, if you select 31, no backup will be initiated on months that contain only 30 or 28 days.

wizard Step3: Enter FTP information

7. In the FTP Server field, enter the name of the FTP server you want to use as the backup server.

8. In the FTP Login field, enter the login user name to the FTP server.

9. In the FTP Password field, enter the login password to the FTP server.

10. In the FTP Location field, enter the absolute path to the backup directory on the FTP server. If you leave the field blank, the files will be saved to your home directory.

- Important: If the specified directory does not exist, the backup fails and an email message containing the error is sent to you.

wizard Step4: Enter miscellaneous information

11. Optional: In the Maximum Backup File Size field, enter the maximum size of the backup file.

12. Important: Various file systems and FTP server utilities have limits on the file size they can handle. If the size of your backup file exceeds the file management threshold of the file system or the FTP server utility on your backup server, the file is split into multiple files before continuing with the backup.
    The split files follow the naming convention as given below:
    <backupfilename.tar.gz>
    <backupfilename.1.tar.gz>
    <backupfilename.2.tar.gz>
    where backupfilename is the name of your backup file.

12. Click the arrow in the Unit list, and select the appropriate quantifying unit (Megabytes or Gigabytes).

13. In the Email field, enter the email address at which you want to receive email notifications about your backup. If you do not want to receive email notifications, leave the field blank.

14. Click Schedule.

The list of scheduled backups is updated.