The next few videos explore the destination options that come with the Backup and Migrate module. This one takes a look at the three that are pre-configured when you install the module: Manual Backups Directory, Scheduled Backups Directory and Default Database.

Destinations

Okay, now we're on to destinations. There are a few default destinations configured, as well as a few additional types of destinations available with the Backup and Migrate module. Let's take a look at these.

  • Go to "Configuration => System => Backup and Migrate => Destinations" (admin/config/system/backup_migrate/destination)

Here you see three destinations pre-configured. Let's take a look at each of them. The first two use the private files directory (configured in the File System settings at admin/config/media/file-system) and the third is the mysql database that the site is using.

Manual Backups Directory

This is in the folder "backup_migrate/manual" inside the private files directory. There are no files to list because we haven't chosen to backup to the Manual directory yet, but we can click "override" and choose a different directory for our backups. Right now, our private files directory is located at "sites/default/files/private", and you might want to store your backups outside of your Drupal installation entirely. For example, if you ever want to download your "files" directory to use locally, you don't really need all of the backups, and having them can significantly increase the size of the "files" directory. So, in many cases, it is more desirable to keep backups outside the Drupal installation.

  • Click "override" for the "Manual Backups Directory"
  • Directory path: /Users/ModulesUnraveled/Websites/BAMManual
  • You also have the ability to change the file mode and group on this page. If you're not sure what chmod and chgrp are, you can safely ignore these two options.
  • (Save destination)

Scheduled Backups Directory

This is the folder "backup_migrate/scheduled" inside the private files directory. Since we've already run a scheduled backup, we can click "list files" and see what we have.

Here we see the two backups that just happened when we ran cron. You'll also see that we can download these backups, restore the site with them, and delete them all from this page. I'm going to go back and override the directory for this, the same way I did for the manual backups.

  • Click back
  • Click "override" for the "Scheduled Backups Directory"
  • Directory path: /Users/ModulesUnraveled/Sites/BAMScheduled
  • (Save destination)

You'll notice that now, if I click "list files" there are no backup files to display. Let's take a look at where the original two were saved to.

  • Go to "sites/default/files/private"

Here, you see the "backup_migrate" directory, and inside that is the "scheduled" directory, and the two backups are inside that. We can actually delete these backups since we changed the backups directory (or you can download them if you'd rather keep them.) This shows you though, that if you do keep your backups here, when you download the "files" directory, you'll also be downloading a lot of unnecessary files which will eat up bandwidth and take a lot more time. I'm going to go ahead and delete the entire "backup_migrate" folder from the "private" files directory.

Default Database

This is the database that your Drupal site is using. It is automatically added by Backup and Migrate so that you can backup your site. You will not want to override this. If you change anything here, you won't be backing up your site.