Backup WordPress

Recently I recieved an email from my WordPress hosting provider (godaddy) that there was an update available for my WordPress website.

I checked and noticed that the update was an update for WordPress to a new version (3.0.4).

It turns out that this is a (critical) security update that addresses a certain XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerabilty.

And I do understand that it is important to keep your WordPress installation updated in order to keep things secure.

So I wanted to go ahead and update, right?

Not so fast.

It is highly recommended to perform a complete backup before updating just in case something goes hay wire.

And I have a fair amount of time and effort invested into my website at this point.

So it was time for me to learn about backing up WordPress.

I googled: “wordpress backup” and landed here: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

I read everything and assessed my options.

I wanted a complete (mirror copy) backup that I could test locally (offline) on my PC within a xampp environment on my Windows 7 PC.

I called godaddy tech support and I lucked out when I got a support technician who was familiar with WordPress and knew how to back it up.

I explained to him what I was up to.

I wanted to use FTP to transfer the required files to my local PC.

He walked me thru downloading, installing and using Filezilla FTP client to copy all required WordPress files down to my PC.

I already knew where to place these files within xampp (htdocs folder).

Then I had to edit the wp-config.php and change the url to “local”.

I also had to open PhpmyAdmin within xampp and create a new database and then reassociate the sql file that I had downloaded from my godaddy WordPress installation.

Now it was time to test my work so I opened a browser and entered http://localhost in the url address area.

Then I hit “enter” and walla! Success.

My locally installed website came up and I was ready to test the new update on my “sandbox” website.

The updates worked flawlessly (so far) on my sandbox site so I updated my live website and also had no problems.