How to Backup and Restore your Jamroom

Backing up your Jamroom system is one of the most important things you can do on a regular basis to ensure the continued functioning of your site in cases of server crash and data corruption.  For the most part, you can hope you will never need to use any of your backups, but it gives you peace of mind knowing that you are prepared if something should happen.

It is also highly recommended that you consider hosting with a service provider that makes regular scheduled backups of ALL of your site data - not just Jamroom.  Jamroom Guaranteed Hosting does just this - saving you from the hassle of doing it yourself.

Backing up Your Jamroom

Backup your Jamroom Database

The first step in Backing up your Jamroom, is to take a "snapshot" of your current Jamroom Database.  Jamroom provides a built in Database backup tool for your use:

1. Log in to your Jamroom as the Master Admin
2. Click on the "Jamroom Tools" link in the Master Admin Menu
3. Select the "Backup Database" option from the Tools list
4. Click on the "Begin Download" button to begin the database backup
5. After a couple of seconds, you will be prompted in your Browser that a new file is being download - this is the SQL file containing the necessary SQL code to re-create all of the data in your database.
6. Save the file to a location on your hard drive.  You will see that the file name has a date and time stamp in it, so at a later date you can see what the most recent SQL file is that you have saved.
7. That's it - you have successfully backed up your Jamroom Database!

Backup your Jamroom Data

1. The next step in your backup process is to backup your Jamroom DATA.  There can be a lot of media files loaded up in your Jamroom, so it may not be practical for your to backup all of your media files (especially if you have gigs and gigs), but it is recommended that you back up EVERY directory except the members and media directory. 
2. Using a FTP program (FileZilla is highly recommended), log in to your Jamroom server via FTP
3. download ALL of the Jamroom Data in your jamroom directory EXCEPT the jamroom/members and jamroom/media directories (if you have upgraded from Jamroom 2.x, you may have jamroom/bands and jamroom/songs directories).  If your members and media directories are only a couple hundred of megabytes, it is recommended to backup ALL of your Jamroom directories
4. Now you have backup copies of all the scripts, templates and files that make up your Jamroom.

Restoring your Jamroom

In the event that you need to restore your Jamroom to a previous state, here are the steps you can take to restore your Jamroom to a previous backed up state.  If you get to this point however, and have NOT made a proper backup of your Jamroom site, then there's really nothing that can be done - your best bet is to load up a fresh copy and start over!

Restore your Jamroom Data

1. Install Jamroom following the Jamroom Install Guide.
2. Log in to the Web Server your Jamroom has been installed on.
3. Upload ALL of the data from your previous data backup up to your Jamroom server, overwriting any files that may already exist.
4. After the upload is complete, verify the directory permissions on the following directories to ensure the web user can write to them (i.e. 777 permissions if you are running PHP as an Apache module, or 755 if you are running PHP as a CGI):
   • jamroom/members
   • jamroom/media
   • jamroom/compile
   • jamroom/config
   • jamroom/logs
   • jamroom/uploads
5. That's it for the file side - move on to the Database restoral.

Restore your Jamroom Database

1. Install phpMyAdmin (or verify you have access to it in your Web Control Panel).
2. After phpMyAdmin has been installed, load phpMyAdmin up in your browser.
3. Select the Jamroom Database in the drop down menu on the left hand side of phpMyAdmin.
4. Click on the "Import" tab at the top of the phpMyAdmin screen in the right hand frame.
5. Click on the "Browse" button next to the "Location of the text file" box, and select the Jamroom SQL file that was saved to your hard drive in the Database backup steps above.
6. Click on the "Go" button to import your Jamroom Database.

That's it - you should be able to log back in to your restored Jamroom!