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Total Upkeep WordPress Backup Plugin

The Total Upkeep backup plugin provides peace of mind for you by allowing you to schedule WordPress backups and ensures that you can recover from any problems associated with your WordPress website. You have the option of setting up the days of the week these backups run on, as well as the time of day. You can also exclude portions of your site, such as core files or your content folder, which will make the backups happen quicker if needed.

Schedule Automatic Backups

  • In the Dashboard, Navigate to Total Upkeep → Settings
  • In the Backup Schedule section you have the option of using the cron system on your Linux Host, or WP Cron, which is a virtual cron system that is triggered by someone visiting your site. In most cases system Cron is recommended, however if it is not enabled in your web server configuration then Total Upkeep will default to using WP Cron.
  • Configure the days of the week you wish backups to run on
  • Configure the time of day you wish to run your backups
  • Set your preferred backup location
  • Specify files and database tables to backup
  • In the Retention section you can set the number of backups to store
  • In the Backup Directory you can change the local storage location from boldgrid_backup
  • In the Notifications section you can send notifications to an email account upon backup completion
  • You can also check your BoldGrid Connect Key status

Set Backup Schedules with WP-CLI

Although you can schedule Total Upkeep backups within the dashboard, advanced users can manage the WordPress backup plugin settings faster using WordPress Command Line Interface (WP- CLI) commands to schedule, list, and clear backup schedules.

Note: You must have WP-CLI installed and SSH access to continue. You’ll need to ask your hosting provider if SSH, cPanel Terminal, and WP-CLI are available. You can also install WP-CLI manually.

  • Log in to SSH or cPanel Terminal
  • Navigate to your WordPress directory – usually public_html
  • To ensure you’re in the right website directory, type:
    wp option get home && wp option get siteurl
  • Set the schedule. Days are numbered 0-6 for Sunday through Saturday. Time is set for 24 hours. For example, to set a backup schedule for every Wednesday and Saturday at 11 PM:
    wp bgbkup schedule set --days=3,6 --time=2300
  • To list all current schedules, type one of the following:
    wp bgbkup schedule list
    wp bgbkup schedule show
  • To remove all backup schedules:
    wp bgbkup schedule clear

Read more with the command wp bgbkup schedule help. Learn more about WP-CLI on wordpress.org.

Troubleshooting

Backups aren’t running at the Scheduled Times

Total Upkeep allows you to choose between two Schedulers to control when your backups run, System Cron and WP Cron. While WP Cron should be available with every site, not all WordPress hosting includes access to the System Cron.

System Cron

System Cron relies on the time settings for your server. Because servers are running constantly, the backups will almost always fire off at the expected time. WP Cron on the other hand works a little differently.

WP Cron

WP Cron functions like a queue of tasks that wait to trigger until someone visits your site. For example, you schedule a backup to run at 2 am with WP Cron and when 2 am comes around the backup process is flagged for execution, but does not run.  Then when someone visits your website at 6 am WP Cron kicks in and starts running all of the queued processes.  That is the general idea of how WP Cron works with Total Upkeep and if you would like to learn more about the specifics of WP Cron we recommend checking out the WordPress developer handbook entry on it.

 

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