How to backup your WordPress site to Amazon S3 using BackWPup backup plugin (Part 2 of 5)

This article series will give you step-by-step instructions for formulating and implementing your backup strategy:

Part 1) Introduction
Part 2) How to install BackWPup WordPress backup plugin
Part 3) How to sign-up for Amazon S3 to store your backup files offsite
Part 4) How to configure BackWPup to store your wordpress website backups on Amazon S3
Part 5) How to restore your website from your backups

This is Part 2 of 5 in this series. It provides instructions installing and configuring BackWPup WordPress backup plugin.

In the first article we discussed why backups are necessary.

In the next two articles we will signup for Amazon S3 and configure BackWPup to automatically store the backup files in Amazon S3.

In this article we will setup the plugin to do a manual backup.
The step-by-step instructions with screenshots will take all the guesswork out of the plugin installation and configuration process.

Install BackWPup WordPress backup plugin

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After trying a few free WordPress backup plugins and experimenting with a few manual and semi-automated processes for backups, I have settled on the BackWPup plugin for automating the backups of my WordPress websites.

To install the plugin, login to your WordPress site as an admin, then

  1. Click on “Add New” under Plugins
  2. Search for “BackWPup”
  3. Click “Install Now”

Activate Plugin

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The plugin will install itself. After it says “Successfully installed …”,

  1. Click the “Activate Plugin” link to activate the plugin

Go to the BackWPup plugin’s Settings page

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After you activiate the plugin, the plugins list page will be displayed.

  1. Click the “Settings” links under BackWPup

Configure General Settings

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  1. Click the “Settings” link in the top-right menu
  2. Change the email address to be your own email address if needed. By default your admin email will be used.
  3. Change “0” to “7” to save the last 7 log files. This is only useful for troubleshooting.
  4. Click “Save Change”

You will not need to change anything else on this screen (unless you know what you are doing).

Create a manual backup Job: Step 1

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  1. Click “Jobs”
  2. Click “Add New”

Create a manual backup Job: Step 2

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After you click the ‘Add New” button, the Job Settings screen s displayed.
This screen can look quite daunting, but fear not — to create a manual backup Job you can pretty much accept all the defaults.

  1. Just provide a name (I suggest calling this job “Manual Backup”)
  2. Uncheck the checkbox which says “Only send an e-mail if there are errors.” — I like to receive emails on successful completion of the backup as well. This provides me with the peace of mind knowing that the job completed successfully. The notification will be sent to the email specified here. You can change it to a different email address if you prefer
  3. Click “Save Changes”
  4. Click the “Jobs” link to go back to the jobs listing screen

And you have created a Manual Backup “job” (A “job” here just means a specific configuration).

When we execue this job, the backup file will get created in the directory indicated in the “Backup to Directory” section. Make a note of this directory.

Perform a manual backup

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  1. Click the “Run Now” link under the job you just created (The Run Now link will appear when you move your mouse over the name of the job)
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You will see the output of the backup process as shown above.
In my case I get two warnings that I can safely ignore.

Once this process is completed, open your favorite FTP program and download the ZIP file from the Download directory that you noted in the step above.
Make sure you can open the generated ZIP file using your favorite archove utility (you can download the free and very good 7-Zip archive utility if you don’t have WinZip).

That’s it! You have successfully created a manual backup of your website.

In the next two articles we will signup for Amazon S3 and configure the plugin to store the backup files in Amazon S3.

If you are still unsure on how to proceed or have any questions contact StressLessWeb. I will be happy to help you out.


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