Welcome to Thunderdome

How do you back it up and restore from back up? Easily.

I have been backing up daily forever. I can see all the backups piling up and will purge old ones regularly. Also have it on a RAID 1 array. So I'm being very responsible with my data. However, one thing I learned this weekend is:
I don't know how to restore from backup.

My email uses MYSQL to keep track of email. When the server crashes, the DB gets jacked up and tons of emails are lost, etc. So, I start looking at my backups and realize I have no idea how to use them. Everything I read said "Back up your database before doing this. Now, delete everything in the DB." That's as far as I read. I don't know enough about MYSQL to delete everything even when I think I've been backing it up.

I REALLY don't want to have to become a DB admin to manage my email so I'm hoping there are user friendly utilities out there I might be able to use. Anyone know of any? Anyone know an easy way to back up and restore MYSQL DBs?

The easiest thing would be to stop using a physical server, and outsource your MySQL to Amazon Web Services using their RDS (Remote Database Service) MySql. It makes backup/restore point n click, and it takes care of most things for you.

Although, realistically, it looks pretty easy: https://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/my ... ackup-file

That restores to a new DB, so you can test things out. Or you can point your email server to it, without getting rid of the old DB first.

phpAdmin looks like a tool that makes life a little easier: https://support.managed.com/kb/a2034/ho ... admin.aspx

I don't use MySQL day to day, mostly MS-SQL

We have both MySQL and MS-SQL, but our backup program has agents we install on servers based on their function and it does the rest.

Not sure I'd be able to point my email at a remote server. The whole thing loaded and configured itself at install. I guess that's the first thing to take a look at.

I'm embarrassed that it's almost to the point where I have to hire IT people to manage my stuff.

Cakedaddy wrote: Not sure I'd be able to point my email at a remote server. The whole thing loaded and configured itself at install. I guess that's the first thing to take a look at.

Typically programs like that have defaults, but can be configured. Obviously unknowable without knowing your software. You could fake it with a persistent SSH tunnel redirecting the localhost port to a remote server:port, but that's hacky.

Doing this stuff drives home how far I've fallen away from it. And why I got away from it.

Cakedaddy wrote: Doing this stuff drives home how far I've fallen away from it.

It doesn't take long to forget stuff, especially since it's always changing. I've forgotten a lot of desktop stuff that comes back to me as soon as I get one step in the right direction. It's why I stick to servers. However, the more I get pulled into the managerial side, the more I forget.