Can I run backups from the shell / cron?

N.B. (April 2018 – the instructions on this page should still work, but we now support WP-CLI, which is the recommended way to interact with UpdraftPlus from the command-line. See our WP-CLI documentation here).

If you have shell access, then running a backup from the command-line has one big advantage over running it via your website: you shouldn’t get time-outs, so the backup will not need to automatically resume, but can run through in one go.

Furthermore, from the shell you can view the progress more easily in real-time. You can also run these as cron jobs.

To kick off a backup from the shell or cron, run a PHP file in the directory of your WordPress installation that looks like this:

<?php

define('UPDRAFTPLUS_CONSOLELOG', true);
define('DOING_CRON', true);
require_once('wp-load.php');
do_action('updraft_backupnow_backup_all');

If you don’t want to watch the lines being logged running past, then you can miss out the “define” line.

  • To backup just files, replace the ‘do_action’ line with: 
    do_action('updraft_backup');
  • To backup just the database, replace the ‘do_action’ line with: 
    do_action('updraft_backup_database');

If you want to only backup certain entities (e.g. plugins, themes, database) then replace the do_action line with:

global $updraftplus;
$backup_files = true;
$backup_database = true;
$entities_to_include = array('plugins', 'themes');
$updraftplus->boot_backup($backup_files, $backup_database, $entities_to_include);

If you wish or want to resume an already-started job, then instead of the do_action line above, use this one – but change the 12-digit hex code to the code for your job (which you can easily spot in the log file of a started job, or from the filenames in your wp-content/updraft directory):

do_action('updraft_backup_resume', 'fbb7e2919e0c', 1);

If you wish to run incremental backups, in addition to the normal backup cronjob, you will need to add a second task calling the following action:

do_action('updraft_backup_increments');

For example:

<?php

define('UPDRAFTPLUS_CONSOLELOG', true);
define('DOING_CRON', true);
require_once('wp-load.php');
do_action('updraft_backup_increments');

Schedule this cron task at the times you wish for the incremental backups to run, and the full backup task with a wider interval.

Note that on a WordPress multi-site install, you will also need to add (before the line that loads wp-load.php), lines like these – but change them so that the host and URI together indicate one of your sites. (If they do not match any, then the line that loads wp-load.php will not return; WordPress will die first).

$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] = 'site.localdomain';
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = '/';

On older versions of WordPress, you may instead need to install the patch from this ticket, in order to overcome a WordPress bug; here is the patch for 3.7 (believed to work for some later versions too): http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14913 (or if you are on 3.6 or 3.7, get an already-patched version of the relevant WordPress file from: http://updraftplus.com/forums/support-forum-group1/paid-support-forum-forum2/problem-whit-uploads-dir-thread33.1/#postid-232).

Posted in: Advanced usage, Backing up

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