Various ways on creating WordPress backups without a plugin with SSH

README.md

Backup WordPress Sites without Plugin

Method 1

• Make sure SSH is enabled on client server.
• Run ssh username@websitename.com
• Run mysqldump -u dbusername -p dbname > backup_dbname.sql
• Once inside run rsync -avz public_html/ testservername@testserver.com:public_html/testfolder
• Log in to your test server using SSH.
• Navigate to the test site folder with cd public_html/subdomain-folder.
• Run find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; for files.
• Run find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; for directories.
• Wait until finished.
• Update URL's. Check out WordPress documentation.

Method 2

• Login to your client's webhost(cPanel preferred).
• Compressed wp-content folder.
• Backup database using phpmyadmin or WP DB Migrate plugin and download.
• Login to your test server using ssh.
• Go into your preferred folder with cd public_html/subdomain-folder.
• Download the compressed wp-content(wp-content.zip) file using wget e.g. wget http://example.net/wp-content.zip.
• Login to your test server webhost(cPanel preferred).
• Navigate to your test site folder with cd public_html/subdomain-folder.
• Install WordPress manually.
• After installation remove wp-content folder and uncompress the wp-content.zip downloaded earlier. If you want to use SSH to uncompress zipped files you can do unzip wp-content with or without the file extension.
• Log in to your test server using SSH.
• Navigate to the test site folder.
• Run find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; for files.
• Run find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; for directories.
• Drop database content from original installation and import the database backup from client site.
• Update URL's. Check out WordPress documentation.

Method 3a

• Log into your client's webhost(cPanel preferred).
• Create database backup via mysqldump or any other tool.
• Create exclude.txt file. With SSH you can use vim vi exclude.txt.
• Input the following:

  .tar
  .gz
  .tar.gz
  .zip
  .7z
  .rar
  

  ** You can also add directories/specific files into it.
• Type tar -zcvf public_html/backup_websitename.tar.gz -X exclude.txt public_html.
• Now log into your test sever via SSH.
• Navigate to the test site folder
• Use wget/curl to pull the backup file from the client's site e.g. wget http://example.com/backup_websitename.tar.gz.
• Wait until finished downloading.
• Type tar -zxvf backup_websitename.tar.gz to extract.
• Run find . -type f -exec chmod -exec 644 {} \; for files.
• Run find . -type d -exec chmod -exec 755 {} \; for directories.
• Import database.
• Update URL's. Check out WordPress documentation.

Method 3b

• Log into your client's webhost(cPanel preferred).
• Create database backup via mysqldump or via phpmyadmin.
• Browse into the public_html folder and compress all content
• Optional: rename the created compressed file to backup.zip to remember it easily.
• Now log into your test sever via SSH.
• Navigate to the test site folder
• Use wget/curl to pull the backup file from the client's site e.g. wget http://example.com/backup.zip.
• Wait until finished downloading.
• Type unzip backup to extract. ** Note backup is the filename of the zipped file.
• Run find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; for files.
• Run find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; for directories.
• Import database.
• Update URLs. Check out WordPress documentation.

Method 4

• Login to your test server using SSH.
• Go to your test site folder e.g. cd public_html/backup
• Install WordPress using wp-cli or manually.
• Rename wp-content folder e.g. mv wp-content wp-content.old
• Use wget and ftp to access your client's live server e.g. wget -m -np -nH --cut-dirs=2 --ask-password ftp://username@ftp.example.com/wp-content/
• Wait until finish.
• Run find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; for files.
• Run find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; for directories.
• Export and import database.
• Update URL's. Check out WordPress documentation.