The following Perl program allows you to make a remote back up of the MySQL database used by the well known Open Source bulletin board package phpBB. I have been using this Perl program for several months to back up the data of two phpBB message boards.
Read the rest of phpBB remote backup program.
Hi,
I am not sure what this script does. Can someone please explain more. It seems that we can take backup of the PHPBB database thru' a remote site. Is it true? Does this script automatically delete the old created backup files when the new backup file is created.
Nainil Chheda.
Hi Nainil,
Yes, it makes it possible to make a backup of a phpBB database on another computer.
You can use the -f option to specify a file, and yes, this will overwrite the old one. However, I recommend to use a back up directory, store this on, for example CD, on a weekly or monthly basis, and delete the files that are at least on 2 CDs only.
Can't get this to work. keep getting 'no backup download link found'. I've tried with perl on linux and also a fresh install of activeperl. I wish I knew perl well enough to debug it
I found out the bug. You must not be running the most current version of phpBB. They added a new re-login feature to the admin section. Even if you are logged in , you must re-login to get to the admin section. This is where the script is stuck.
Thanks Chris!
Indeed, this was the bug. Has been fixed, many thanks.
Hi me again.
I got the updated php backup script which works very well on my smaller phpbb installations. thank you
However I have a larger phpbb installation that the scripts fails on. Error is
Download failed: 500 Server closed connection without sending any data backIm sure this is due to the larger size of this phpbb database. Is there some setting that could increase the capability of the script to download larger files? Perhaps its a php.ini setting, perhaps its a Apache setting. Thanks
Hi Chris,
The largest back up I have been able to create so far is over 9 MB. If you're able to manually make a back up via the administration panel of phpBB, the script should be able too.
Can you check the script fails every time, but the manual back up just works fine?
Thanks
Great stuff! Once I installed all the required Perl modules (and learnt to use cpan in the process) this worked super smoothly. Thanks!
Hi! I can't get it working. I've tried several times but i recieve error 500. I use ASCII transfer, set perm. to 755; put it where is O.K... Do i have to change something in the code? pls help
I just found your script in a google groups thread. I have no idea if it works, but I'd like to say thanks for making it freely available anyway.
I know absolutely squat about perl and only slightly more about phpbb admin. I've been administering a free phpbb message board for over a year now and the server has taken a huge turn for the worse. I'm trying to move to my own server, but the owner of my current board's server has disabled backup in the admin panel. I *REALLY* don’t want to lose all of the messages my group currently has. So, my first question is, will this script work if the backup feature has been disabled on my board?
Also, since I'm a total dunce about perl but would love to use your script, it would be helpful if you had a simple "Here's what you need to do to run my scipt" post. Maybe like "1 - download and install perl. 2 - do whatever with my script. 3 - run the script."
I'm probably greatly oversimplifying things, but I hope you get my drift.
Thanks, Max.
Well, after sending you a message earlier today, I decided I should be good enough with computers that I can figure this out without explicit instructions. So, long story short, I got the script runnnig. Yay for me! :) The bad news is that I'm getting the error 'no backup download link found'. I'm afraid that I'm probably getting this error because the site owner has turned off my ability to backup from the admin panel. Would you agree with that assessment?
Thanks for the code, though. I'm sure it'll make things much easier in the future once I move my forum on to my own web site.
Max.
If I get the following error:
: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
what is the most likely explanation? Is it saying that my argument to the -d or -f flag is not valid?
I'm not a perl expert I'm afraid... =(
@3N1GM4 - I am guessing that you uploaded the file to a computer running GNU/Linux, *BSD, or similar operating system?
The bad interpreter might be caused by using the wrong line endings, i.e. using DOS line endings instead of UNIX line endings. See A simple Perl Program to test CGI.
Note that your comment doesn't show up immediately. I review each comment before I add it to this site.
Check the Follow this page option if you want to receive an email each time a comment is posted to this page, including yours. A link to turn this option off will be included with each email.
Internet adresses will be converted automatically. You can use the following notation to specify anchor text for a link: [url=http://example.com/]example text[/url].
Hey, Just bumped into this script. Thanks a lot ! It works like a charm !