Backup

[crustybum]

This must have been asked many times but a "real" backup facility in the admin area...i mean what point is the backup thats there already if you cant restore it?

[Kindred]

while we all know that the backup functionality needs to be fixed...   what the heck would you do with a restore? The point of a backup is (usually) that something trashed your site - so how would you get to a restore function if the site is down and you need to restore?

that makes no sense.

[crustybum]

er, surely you would upload SMF and then restore? or is that too simple? or is that the back up is purely cosmetic?

[emanuele]

Do you want the truth and only the truth?

is that the back up is purely cosmetic?

That.

Is there just because people don't want to go to phpmyadmin to take backups.

[Arantor]

Assuming you have a good backup of the DB... you'd just restore the DB.

I have run SMF for years, including restoring DB backups in that time and I have never gone back through to reinstall SMF (and then all the mods) when I could just do the actual job that I need to do: restore the DB.

Is there just because people don't want to go to phpmyadmin to take backups.

Back in the day it was because hosts didn't always give it out, but given that most hosts do, and for those that don't, you can install it yourself anyway...

[emanuele]

Back in the days of course, now I think you have to search for a host that doesn't give you phpmyadmin access...I think.

[MrPhil]

There's no technical issue that says that SMF couldn't do a restore itself (so long as the database info in Settings.php is up to date). It's just that no one ever bothered to write the code to do it. It should require entry of a separate password (hard coded in Settings.php), to keep a hacker from restoring a backup that you were too lazy to remove from your site, but other than that, I can't see that there would be any security problem. It would be more complicated than making a backup (which SMF still doesn't do right), and would probably have to be a separate utility script, rather than built into SMF via index.php.

The fact that phpMyAdmin should be available to any site owner, and the fact that the current backup is very buggy, suggests that backup and restore be "left to the professionals" (phpMyAdmin, etc.). But, I suppose separate backup and restore utilities could be written for SMF, for the benefit of those unfortunate souls on bare-bone systems which don't provide phpMyAdmin or the forum owner is unable or unwilling to install it -- is this a common enough problem to warrant the effort?

[Antechinus]

TBH, if your host is that bad, find a better one. It wont cost much more.