Making backups

superMicro CMS has a simple backup utility: two clicks to ZIP everything up, one click to download to your hard drive

Even if the whole website is deleted from the server it can easily be restored as long as the relevant files have been backed up to a local hard drive. Admin / Backup can be used or they can be downloaded via FTP (or cPanel File Manager).

The website and all its content can just as easily be moved from one folder to another, or installed on a different server altogether. There is no database, just files. The files to back up are:

• All the files in the /pages/ folder.
• All the correspondingly-named .php files in the root folder.
• All the files in the /comments/ folder.
• All the files in the /extras/ folder.
• /css/stylesheet.css, /css/mobile.css and /css/extra.css
• /inc/inmenu.txt
• All the files in the /img/ folder.
• All the files in the /upload/ folder.
• All the files in the /video/ folder.

Using backups to start again from scratch

(1) Create a brand new installation of supermicro CMS.

(2) Upload all the backup files to their respective folders.

(3) In Admin / Setup, Submit setup.

It is advisable not to open any backup .txt files before they are uploaded again. Text files created on the website may be Unix files and on your own computer may be Windows files. Line endings for instance may be treated differently from one platform to another. If the backup text files are never opened except on the website, there should be no issues of incompatibility — although I have only encountered this when using a Unix-based backup file on a different Windows server (new empty lines were created above every original new line).

If a backup .txt file is opened on your own computer (in a text editor such as Window Notepad) and you intend to paste the text into a new page on la.plume micro CMS it is better to save it locally as a new file. The text can then be safely copied and pasted without any incompatibility issues. Read more »