Risk Management, Computer Security, Asset Protection

If you ever needed a website backup but didn’t have one available, I’ve discovered a tool that MIGHT help you get some of your files back. No promises, but even a partial recovery is better than no recovery.

Before I talk about the tool, though, web site backups are pretty easy if you use cPanel:

• First, use the “Backup Wizard” in cPanel to back up the files on your website. Do this as often as needed (i.e. if you change files, do a new backup). It only takes a couple of minutes to launch the wizard (it could take a while to actually back up and archive the files, depending on server load and the size of the files). I recommend downloading the files to your local computer, then make a copy of the backup on a portable drive and store it somewhere outside your primary office location (just make sure it’s secure).
• Next, back up your databases. In cPanel, click on the “phpMyAdmin” link. A new window will appear with your databases listed on the left side. Click on each database (in turn), then click on the “Export” tab. Just leave everything as it is (one exception; if it’s a large database, you might want to click on the “gzipped” radio button in the “Compression” field), then click on the “Go” button at the bottom right of the window. Your database dump (in SQL format) will appear; simply copy and paste this into a text document and save it. To restore it, just click on the “Import” tab instead of the “Export” tab.

That should take care of the backup needs for most businesses. Takes a few minutes, but it’s a lot better than losing your web site (and it can, and will, happen, so please do this regularly).

But if you’ve lost a web site, you might be able to get part of it back by using the Warrick Recovery Tool. Warrick attempts to piece your website back together by visiting various sites that might have recent copies of files on your website, such as archive.org and various search engines.

As you can probably tell, it’s an “iffy” proposition. For example, archive.org doesn’t display the content it archives for six months after it scrapes it. Search engines might not know that your site exists or may not archive every page on it. Still, it will probably be better than nothing, and should you run into this problem, it may help.

One other suggestion: As you write content for your website, do it in a text editor of some type, then copy and paste it into your HTML document or content management system (like WordPress). Then save that file, using the date created and a good description in the file name. It’s easy enough to do and gives you one more possible backup source.

You’ve put a lot of effort into building your website. In some cases, you rely on your website to pay the mortgage/rent and to put food on the table. Why not give just a bit more effort to ensure that your website is protected?

P.S. — If you don’t have a good cPanel-based web hosting company, I recommend Dathorn Internet Services. They only offer reseller hosting accounts, but you can just use them for yourself; you don’t have to resell anything — and their rates are competitive and their service superb. Almost all of my sites are hosted there, including this one.

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