Backup and Recovery: Restoring Your File Base

In this tutorial I would like to take you through the process of recovering the file base archive we created in the tutorial Backup and Recovery: Restoring Your File Base.  I will look at when to recover, how to do that recovery and show you the process in the associated video screen cast.

When To Recover

Here are some of the scenarios you will encounter which may require a backup recovery.  It’s my guess you will know when to recover, you will not be able to access your blog or the backend, that’s when to begin.

• Migrating your blog
• Hardware failure causing file corruption
• Roll back a failed update of WordPress
• Hacking attack
• User error – you accidentally deleted your file base for example
• As part of a test of your backup

Don’t Panic

When you are in a recovery scenario, the most important thing is not to panic, you need to slowly and methodically recover the file base and database, this tutorial is equipping you with the knowledge to do that process.  At the end of this series there are some exercises to test this knowledge so you do not enter a recovery situation cold without prior experience of the process.

Counter Intuitive Moment

Make a backup of your problematic file base, before you start the recovery.  This give you a position to fall back to if your recovery process causes more problems.  It will not get any worse than it is now thinking.

Keeping the Database and File base In Line

Just a quick point to say you need to keep your filebase version and your database version in line.  For example if you have just updated your version of WP it is very likely that the database has been updated too, please recover the database before recovering the file base to keep the two systems in line, you can have issues if you are using an updated database and an old file base.

How To Recover Your File Base

Recovering your file base is the reverse operation to backing it up, using an FTP client in SFTP mode, go to your saved archive and upload the files back to your hosting account.  You can recover the full archive by uploading it to your hosting account, or you can just upload a part of it.  For example you have have been editing your theme, and caused an issue, you cann select just the files under wp-content/themes to recover.

VIDEO: Recovering the WordPress File Base

Running time for this video is approximately 2.5 minutes.

[S3 bucket=wpocrestorefb text=View the video>>]restorefilebase.html[/s3]

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Next In the Series

The next part of the backup and recovery tutorial looks at restoring your database archive.