What will I learn to do?

The database is an essential component of a SPIP site as this is where the site information, articles, sections, key words etc... are stored. As a webmaster you must know how to maintain the database.

In this lesson you will learn:

 how to take a backup, how to restore and how to repair the SPIP database

 why it is important for a webmaster to know how to carry out these tasks

Backing up and restoring: two complementary operations

The backup process consists in saving in a text file the information contained in the database.
This text file is called a dump.

The restoring process on the other hand consists in rebuilding the database from the data contained in a text file, that was previously generated by a backup.

There are many instances when these complementary operations can prove very useful:

 When you confront a server crash where loss of data is incurred you can rebuild your database from the data saved in the backups.

 When you need to duplicate your site to carry out some tests or work off-line using a local database.

 When you upgrade your version of SPIP. Indeed to do that you will first need to take a backup of your database in case of problem, however if you don’t experience any problems during the upgrade process you won’t have to use the dump.

How do I back up the database?

Here are the steps you must take to backup the database:

 From the Launch pad, hover over the "Configuration" icon and click on the "Site maintenance" sub-icon

 On the "Technical maintenance" page in the block "Backup the content of the database", select "save as uncompressed" (leave the proposed default name as is)

 Click on "Backup the database"

 The file will be saved in the tmp/dump/ folder

 The file can be retrieved by FTP and it can be archived on your computer