Backing up a MediaWiki

K, here's how I do it:

Backing up

1. Make sure you've got PHPMyAdmin running and that's all happy. I won't cover this part here as it varies with your set up.
2. Login and choose Export from the main page
3. Leave most of the default options. Specifically,
   • Format: SQL
   • Select the database(s) you want in the listbox
   • etc.
4. Checkmark 'Add DROP TABLE'. This will make sure that when you restore from a backup, it will delete existing tables before restoring from the backed up ones.
5. Checkmark 'Save to file' at the bottom, or it will just dump it to your browser window, and that's no fun.
   • You probably also want to use compression. These won't be huge files, but a 1.5mb database compresses to about 150kb. So, y'know, whatever. Wiggy recommends BZIP.
6. Click Go.

Restoring from backup

I'm writing this from memory, so I might be wrong, but I think it's right.

1. Click Databases from the PHPMyAdmin main page
2. Click the name of your databse (it should already exist; have you [re]installed MediaWiki yet? Do that first.)
3. Click the SQL tab
4. Where it says Location of textfile:, browse to your latest backup, then click Go.

Good luck :E

Related Resources

• AutoMySQLBackup