How to Create Grav Backups

Most content management systems (CMSs) have security and backup plugins available to improve performance and security to your preferences. Grav includes these features natively within the Admin plugin.

Similar to cPanel backup scheduling in WebHost Manager (WHM) (for VPS / Dedicated Hosting only), Grav offers options to configure what’s included in backups, different backup configurations with specified schedules, and how many backups to retain at once.

Below we’ll cover how to create Grav backups with the Admin plugin and SSH.

• Create Manual Backups
  • Retention Settings
• Backup Retention Settings
  • Retention Settings

Create a Backup with Grav Admin

Download an up-to-date Grav backup within minutes.

1. Log in to your Grav Admin plugin.
2. Click Tools on the left.
3. At the bottom, modify the settings in the Backup Profiles section.
   

   Name	Profile name for the settings
   Exclude Paths	Type directory paths to not backup
   Enable Scheduled Job	Toggle to enable automatic backups
   Root Folder	Type location for /backups directory
   Exclude Files	Type files as needed
   Run Scheduled Job	Set timeframe and time to auto-backup if enabled

4. Click Save at the top.
5. Click Add item to create a new backup profile if needed.
6. In the upper-right corner, click the down-arrow beside Backup Now and select your backup profile.
7. Click the Download icon to the right of the backup under Backup History for local storage.

View scheduled backups as cron jobs in the Scheduler tab. Backups are noted in the Logs section with the Notice level and backup URL.

Configure Retention Settings

Grav has three retention options you can choose under Backup Purge Configuration:

Backup Storage Purge Trigger	Choose whether to remove backups by maximum backup space, number of backups, or retention time
Maximum Number of Backups	Removes the oldest backup when set total is reached
Maximum Backups Space	Removes the oldest backup when storage limit is reached
Maximum Retention Time	Removes backups older than set amount of days

Create a Backup in SSH

Users with SSH access can easily create and manage backups with some straight-forward commands. Even users uncomfortable with the command line interface (CLI) should have few issues creating a Grav backup if needed.

1. Log in to SSH or cPanel Terminal.
2. Navigate to the Grav directory with the cd command.
3. Type the command bin/grav backup. You’ll see the prompt below upon completion.

Grav Backup
===========

Archiving 5000 files [=====================] 100% 7 secs Done…

[OK] Backup Successfully Created:
/home/cpaneluser/public_html/grav-subdomain/backup/default_site_backup–20190905201159
.zip

Manage Settings in SSH

Manage backup purge configuration and backup profiles in the system/config/backups.yaml or create the user/config/backups.yaml custom configuration file. Editing backup settings in the Admin plugin will create an user/config/backups.yaml file.

Learn more about Grav CMS in our Support Center.

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