NodeSquirrel is an easy off-site backup solution that integrates with Backup and Migrate. In fact, it was developed by Gorton Studios, the team behind the Backup and Migrate module, and helps fund development of the module itself. I personally love this service, so I decided to include this video showing you just how easy it is to create an account, and schedule automatic backups.

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Coupon Code!! - I spoke with the guys over at Gorton Studios, and they've setup a coupon for anyone who signs up after watching this video! Pretty sweet! So, go ahead and signup for free, try it out, and then when you realize how awesome NodeSquirrel is and want to keep using it, just use coupon code "modsunraveled" to get 25% off your first 3 months!
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NodeSquirrel

You can find NodeSquirrel at NodeSquirrel.com. As you can see from the homepage, all backups are transferred via SSL and are stored encrypted on disk. So, this is a secure way to backup your site. Backups are stored off-site (Amazon S3) so that if something happens to your server, you don't loose your backups with it. And it's user-friendly. We'll walk through the entire process of signing up all the way through scheduling automatic backups, so you'll be able to see just how user-friendly it is!

Sign up for NodeSquirrel

  • Go to NodeSquirrel.com
  • Click "Signup now"
  • Fill in your information
  • Click "Create new account"
  • You'll automatically be logged in, and ready to add a site to your account.
  • Click "Add a Site"
  • Enter your URL
  • Click "Save site"
  • Click "Secret Key" (We need to have a secret key configured so that only we can make backups to this account.)
  • Click "Copy to Clipboard" to copy the secret key

Configure the NodeSquirrel module

Now we need to install and configure the NodeSquirrel module.

  • Install NodeSquirrel
  • Enable NodeSquirrel Client
  • Go to "Configuration => System => Backup and Migrate => NodeSquirrel" (admin/config/system/backup_migrate/nodesquirrel)
  • Paste your secret key in the "Secret Key" field
  • Choose if you'd like automatic Hourly, Daily, Weekly backups, or none. (You can edit this later, as well as add additional schedules)
  • (Save configuration)

Let's run cron to have our first backup saved to NodeSquirrel.

Now, when we head back to Nodesquirrel, we can click "My Backups" and see the new backup! (If you do not see your backup, click the "fetch now" link to update the list.)

Back on our site, in the "Schedules" tab, you can see the "NodeSquirrel" schedule. Let's override that to see how it's setup.

  • Click "override"

Here, you could change the backup source, or profile that is being used for this backup. You can also change the backup schedule to whatever you'd like, and choose to keep a specific number of backups. This last option is important as you have a storage limit on NodeSquirrel. You can see your storage limit, and increase or decrease your plan by clicking "My Plan" when logged into NodeSquirrel.com.

Multiple NodeSquirrel Schedules

Back on our site, we can go to the "Schedules" tab and create additional backup schedules, all going to the same NodeSquirrel account.

  • Go to "Configuration => System => Backup and Migrate => Schedules" (admin/config/system/backup_migrate/schedule)
  • Click "Add Schedule"
  • You can configure the backup however you'd like, and in the Destination field, choose NodeSquirrel. So, you could have multiple backup schedules like daily, and weekly, running at the same time.

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Coupon Code!! - Don't forget to use the coupon code "modsunraveled" to get 25% off your first 3 months!
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