Question

I manage a VPS of my client. He wanted a backup solution includes some folders and mysql databases. OS is Ubuntu, web server is apache. I don’t want my client to mess with ssh or ftp.

I think i can save database backup files and trigger PHP’s exec function from a wab page to zip folders and database backup files, then give a link to download this zip file.

This is technically possible but i wonder if there is a better solution except automatically copying backup files to another server. Because creating backups anytime is required in my situation.

Answer 1

There are lots of possibilities, here is a very simple one we use every day:

• create a backup script (e.g. in bash) with the usual suspects as mysqldump, tar and date
• make sure, this backup script locks against double runs
• create a cron job, that runs every minute, checks if a flagfile exists, and if yes starts the backup script and then clears the flagfile
• if you want, create more cron jobs (e.g. a daily one), that do nothing but set the flagfile
• create a trivial PHP script, that just touches the flagfile to trigger an adhoc backup
• You can download the finished backup package, once the flagfile is cleared (again check via a trivial PHP script)