LiveWhale automatically performs nightly backups of your site database. These backups contain everything needed to restore a functioning copy of your database in the event of an issue or outage.

You can view and export your backups via the LiveWhale admin dashboard using the “Backup/Export” superpower under “System Administration.” Or, on the web server, backups are stored in /livewhale/data/backups.

Customize Backup Frequency

By default, daily backups are saved for 30 days. You can adjust this duration to whatever length of time you wish. Open the LiveWhale public client config (/livewhale/client/public.config.php) using an FTP client or via the command line, and set a TTL duration (in seconds):

$_LW->CONFIG['BACKUPS_TTL']=2592000; // max age (in seconds) of LiveWhale database backups (default: 2592000 i.e. 1 month)

Restrict Backups to “Off-Peak” Hours

Automatic database backups can also be restricted to a specified time range if desired. Open the LiveWhale public client config (/livewhale/client/public.config.php) using an FTP client or via the command line, and set a start and end time:

$_LW->CONFIG['BACKUPS_SCHEDULE_START']=’12:00am';
$_LW->CONFIG['BACKUPS_SCHEDULE_END']='4:00am';

Save Disk Space with Separate Trash Backups

By default, your complete LiveWhale database is backed up daily. You may choose to conserve disk space by only backing up your trash every week, instead if every day. Especially if your users are storing a lot of deleted images, this can save considerable space. The rest of your database will be backed up daily, as usual.

Open the LiveWhale global client config (/livewhale/client/global.config.php) using an FTP client or via the command line, and enable weekly trash backups:

$_LW->CONFIG['ENABLE_WEEKLY_TRASH_BACKUPS']=true;