Hi,

 

I was thinking that if suddenly my hosting company disappears under nuclear bombs overnight, I would be in trouble because some sites of my clients have dynamic content and I won't be able to retrieve anything.

 

Do you have plans or procedures to deal with such situation ?

Yep, I don't host my clients sites for them any more. Leave it to the specialists with their nightly off site backups etc... Also, your clients should have a good backup solution in place so they can just re-up to a new host.

I'd go with a host with a god rep, so you know they aren't just going to close their shed and screw you. I always make back ups of my client sites before putting them on line. For dynamic content you can set up an agreement with your client to back it up for them at a cost, maybe part of a maintenance deal or you can make sure your host has a decent back up solution in place. I know my host does, but I still like to back up my dynamic sites once a week.

THis is something I'm in the middle of setting up at the moment, as I'm moving all my stuff over to an unmanaged VPS.

 

I've bought a HP Proliant Microserver which I'm running headless off my home router. On there I'm setting up rsnapshot as a cron job to take incremental backups of all the important stuff on my VPS via ssh.

Edited February 29, 201214 yr by Renaissance-Design
typo

 

I've bought a HP Proliant Microserver which I'm running headless off my home router. On there I'm setting up rsnapshot as a cron job to take incrememntal backups of all the important stuff on my VPS via ssh.

 

Now this I'm interested in, one for the future maybe.

Now this I'm interested in, one for the future maybe.

 

I'll write up my method once I've got it all reliably set up. Everyone should have one of those little servers; they're awesome.

I'll write up my method once I've got it all reliably set up. Everyone should have one of those little servers; they're awesome.

 

I look forward to it.

Hi,

 

I was thinking that if suddenly my hosting company disappears under nuclear bombs overnight, I would be in trouble because some sites of my clients have dynamic content and I won't be able to retrieve anything.

 

Do you have plans or procedures to deal with such situation ?

 

The really big hosts probably won't just "stop overnight". If they get into financial trouble another company will probably buy the company and take over all the hosting contracts. While this is being arranged, the hosting service would probably just continue, probably with a bank overdraft. Then you would have to sign a new contract (probably at a higher rate) with the new company. (Note all the probablys).

 

This is what happens when ISPs and mobile phone companies run out of money.

@Wickham : for financial problems sure but what about catastrophic events ? My sites are hosted by Justhostme.co.uk and I don't know if they have everything in two separate data centers for example. Note that I could ask them..

 

@Renaissance-Design : sounds interesting but you need a super reliable Internet connection for this isn't it ? (hope I haven't misunderstood anything)

@Renaissance-Design : sounds interesting but you need a super reliable Internet connection for this isn't it ? (hope I haven't misunderstood anything)

 

It's pretty reliable, but it only has to be up for a daily backup - it's not like I'm mirroring the server live.

Couple of my databases are getting quite large

and really ought to set something similiar up

myself. Doubt I'll fork out for the mini server

(though it is nice) and instead will cobble

something together with an old laptop that's been

gathering dust owing to its broken screen.

An apt topic, I think one of our hosts just exploded!

Couple of my databases are getting quite large

and really ought to set something similiar up

myself. Doubt I'll fork out for the mini server

(though it is nice) and instead will cobble

something together with an old laptop that's been

gathering dust owing to its broken screen.

 

That'll work, provided you find somewhere to stash it where it's well-ventilated.

Couple of useful links for folk..

MySqL backup with PHP

Send files via FTP

 

 

Did have a trio of iMac G3 classics aka Huey, Dewy and Lewy

for a couple of years that were given to me and they worked

fabulously as home mini-servers. Designed to be cooled by

convection rather than noisy fans made them ideal.

Sadly gave them away to Freecycle 18 months ago after a

clearout but you can still get them dirt cheap on Ebay.

 

You're right using the laptop will require good ventilation

and will add a standard size PC fan then recase the lot in

a spare tower chassis for a nicer end result.

Edited March 2, 201214 yr by Sogo7

You're right using the laptop will require good ventilation

and will add a standard size PC fan then recase the lot in

a spare tower chassis for a nicer end result.

 

Suggestion: if you're only using one fan, rig it as an intake rather than an exhaust. Positive pressure setups don't attract so much dust.

I cannot recommend enough that if you use Wordpress, use Vaultpress. Knowing all my files and database are backed up securely and safely is really re-assuring. It's not cheap, but it's worth it IMO.

Many years ago I use to use a Low budget German hosting solution which I had around 50 domains , It wasn't priority to keep back-ups as the local file was always sufficient , so to cut a long story short I got the blue screen of death and had to re-install windows, I thought I would take the risk and download all the client files again... then I got a phone call 2 hours later from a customer who said someone had defaced his website with a political message in a foreign language , I was like WTF.

 

I logged into the hosts FTP to realise the hacker had manage to overwrite every index.html / index.php / index.asp with a 2kb file. I was praying that it was just 1 domain and not all 50 domains , turns out it was just a couple that was effected and not all of them , I manage to put the index pages together from the other files but never again.

 

Now im using reliable UK hosting , Daily FTP Back Ups , Cron Jobs etc, I always carry a portable USB 32Gb pen drive with a mirror image of every domain in a encrypted container just in case.