Blog back-up recommendations

December 14, 2004 3:20 PM

How do you backup your blog(s)?
posted by jellybuzz to (22 comments total)

Depends on the software you're using. Movable type has a feature that allows you to export all your entries, comments etc to a single file. You can then import them back into Movable Type.
posted by cubedweller at 3:23 PM on December 14, 2004

mysqldump --opt -u (username) -p [-h (hostname)] dbname > dumpfile.sql
posted by Captain_Tenille at 3:31 PM on December 14, 2004

I use a hosting company that backs up their servers.

If they went completely under, I'll bet I could pull it all out of Google's cache, since the whole thing is plain HTML anyway.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:37 PM on December 14, 2004

Cubedweller, I went with blogger.com (which of course is free, so I assume I'm getting by way of support and security just what I paid for -- I don't expect any overly friendly features from Google here.) (By the way, I also have a business Web site hosted by Earthlink that I do pay for in terms of hosting services, so I don't worry about backing it up -- o.k., call me naive -- I assume Earthlink backs up their own servers at least as far as business customers' sites.)

And Captain, thank you, but that's easy for you to say. I'm no programmer (I only wish...), nor do I dare play one on MeFi ;).
posted by jellybuzz at 3:39 PM on December 14, 2004

Add Captain_Tenille's solution to crontab on a nightly basis and there you go.
posted by xmutex at 3:57 PM on December 14, 2004

jellybuzz: you don't need to be a programmer. On your typical Unix server:

1. crontab -e
2. 0 0 * * * mysqldump -uUSER -pPASSWORD DATABASE > ~/backup.sql

You may have to fully qualify the mysqldump command with the path like "/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqldump."

Then you have a .SQL file updated w/ the MT contents on a nightly basis.
posted by xmutex at 3:59 PM on December 14, 2004

Those cronjobs and sql backups mean nothing if you're using Blogger. All you get are flat HTML files from Blogger/Google, no db access of any kind.

I would 1) trust Google would never ever kill your blog because they're in the business of indexing information and making it available, not killing it. They probably watch the Blogger service like a hawk to make sure they don't get bad press from losing the writing of millions of folks, and 2) if you're really worried, just backup the pages that Blogger spits out, if they're on your server (download them to your personal computer periodically). If it's on blogspot, there's nothing you can do but trust Google here.
posted by mathowie at 4:09 PM on December 14, 2004

Matt, that's comforting, especially coming from you ;).

And it's not that I do not trust Google. It's that despite mass rampant delusion out there with respect to the world's most popular search engine -- as you who, as well as anyone, understands the tech side of all this suff knows -- Google is not god (I insist!), but to the extent it actually is god, or a godlike entity, I worry even more: the extraordinary power and popularity of Google must make it as big a target for clever hackers as the WTC was a magnet for suicidal terrorists. Thus, I fear the enemies of Google.

And come to think of it, maybe I should fear my own enemies as well? Maybe someone is out to get just me -- perhaps a competitor blogger? A mad ex? I don't know... How will Google use its omnipotence and eternal good will to save my lil' ol' blog?

Was it a bad move to use Blogspot? Maybe I should take my business elsewhere?
posted by jellybuzz at 4:46 PM on December 14, 2004

Backing up the HTML files is sufficient for some things, but there are ways to get a useful backup out of Blogger-based services. It really depends on whether you plan to move to another weblogging system and, if so, which one?

For example, here are instructions for:
Exporting a Blogger weblog to MoveableType
Exporting a Blogger weblog to Radio UserLand

I'm sure there are many other such tutorials out there.
posted by Danelope at 4:57 PM on December 14, 2004

Just use one of those programs that save websites by crawling them and set them to only crawls links to username.blogspot.com. Can anyone recommend one of them? I haven't even looked for such a thing for ages.

I don't use blogger, but it's unfair of them if they don't have an 'export' option.
posted by Firas at 5:10 PM on December 14, 2004

first them = the websites
second them = the program
third them = the program
fourth them = google
posted by Firas at 5:11 PM on December 14, 2004

jellybuzz, there are a lot of really low-cost hosting options (>$10/mo) that offer features like daily server backups (I don't want to turn this into a commercial for anything, but I'd be happy to make several recommendations privately based on the research I did before deciding myself - e-mail in profile).

I was a happy Blogspotter for several months, but the truth is that their system was never designed for long term use - it experiences downtime due to overload, and is really designed to allow you to try out blogging and see if you like it. If you do, a minimal investment in hosting is well worth the peace of mind.
posted by deliriouscool at 5:15 PM on December 14, 2004

Thanks, Deleriouscool. (Interesting: Matt says trust Google, you say get out of there.) May I ask, what made you conclude Blogspot was meant for short term only? Certainly the service is rather amateurish. And yes, I agree a small monthy fee may be well worth the value gained. I would like to hear more about your research. To where did you move your blog?
posted by jellybuzz at 5:40 PM on December 14, 2004

I use Blosxom. Although Blosxom is very simple and primitive, it has the singular advantage that every post is a plain text file. So backups simply require one to archive the Blosxom post directory. Voila!
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:43 PM on December 14, 2004

I would set the archives to monthly and download the pages using the "save as" function in the browser. There are also programs like web spider that will do it for you. Also blogger can be set to send emails of your new posts. But as Matt says pretty useless since if you wanted to put the blog up again you'd have to do it post by post.

I've been using blogger. I liked it at first but some things are starting to irritate me like the lack of a proper ping back/trackback function and all the "internal server 500" errors, time outs and general slowness of the service and it seems to have gotten worse over time. Its bugged me enough where I've stopped posting and seriously considering my own domain and using Moveable Type or Word Press.
posted by squeak at 6:08 PM on December 14, 2004

I wouldn't trust Google. All of my pages have somehow been deleted from Google, and adding the URL to Google hasn't done a thing. No clue why they're gone, don't know how to get them back into its cache. I've noticed the MSNbot scans my pages every day, but neither they nor Google have my pages anymore. Weird.

But anyway! You can do a quick and dirty backup using the dreaded IE. Add your site (or maybe your archive page) as a bookmark, and when doing so, select "Make Available Offline," then click the "Customize" button. From there, run through the wizard, select "Yes" on the page that asks you if you want to download links, and alternately, select the number of links deep you want to go. You can then choose to set up a schedule for it to run every day or every week or whenever.

It's definitely quick and dirty and may not download everything (and will more than likely download too much!), but it's better than nothing and pretty simple to do.
posted by jenh at 6:19 PM on December 14, 2004

..umm..

I don't.

With any luck, my host does, but even if she doesn't, no big loss.
posted by deborah at 7:11 PM on December 14, 2004

If youre using mysql, your web host probably runs phpmyadmin which is a web front end for mysql. Just export Structure and Data into a text file and you're pretty much set.

One of my blogs is run with greymatter so I just download the whole thing, or just the .cgi files in /archive. With those I can just rebuild using my templates.

In other words, its blog software specific.
posted by skallas at 7:32 PM on December 14, 2004

Daily backup of all changed files including Movable Type and comment databases over the network with Retrospect. (One advantage of having your own Web server.) I can go back to any day in the last two weeks this way.
posted by kindall at 7:53 PM on December 14, 2004

Self-link: I put together an article called Blogger Backups a while back that ought to be still valid to answer this question. Though I agree that Google is unlikely to do anything for the forseeable future that would jeapordize BlogSpot users.
posted by billsaysthis at 8:46 PM on December 14, 2004

Here's Blogger's answer (from the help pages)
posted by dhruva at 9:10 PM on December 14, 2004

I have a cron job setup using a php script that emails me a copy of all my mysql databases every night, to my gmail account.
posted by gramcracker at 10:13 PM on December 14, 2004