Backing up QATrack+

Note

Note, please speak with your server administrator to see if you already have a backup plan in place for both databases and files. If you already do then great, you can ignore this page! If not then please read on.

It is highly recommended you put an automated backup solution in place for your QATrack+ installation. It is also highly recommended that your backups not reside on the QATrack+ server itself. That is to say, you should favour having your backups stored on a remote system (e.g. a network or shared drive) so that if your server loses its primary hard drive you will still have access to your backups. Example backup scripts for Linux (to be run by cronjob) and Windows (run by Task Scheduler) are included below. These scripts back up nightly, and retain daily backups for a week, weekly backups for 5 weeks and monthly backups for ~1 year (these values are configurable).

Danger

The scripts included below can be used as is, or modified to suit your needs, but ultimately it is up to you to ensure your QATrack+ installation is backed up correctly.

Backing up QATrack+ on Linux

To use one of the example backup scripts on a Linux install, copy the appropriate script for your database to the main QATrack+ directory:

cp deploy/postgres/backup.sh .
# - or - #
cp deploy/mysql/backup.sh

Now edit the backup.sh file and set the various options in the configuration section. Add the backup.sh script to your crontab:

# make the script executable by everyone so cron can run it
chmod 755 backup.sh

# add the crontab entry to run every night at 3am
(crontab -l && echo "0 3 * * * $PWD/backup.sh") | crontab -

# -or edit your crontab manually and append a line like "0 3 * * * /home/randlet/web/qatrackplus/backup.sh"
crontab -e

Backing up QATrack+ on Windows

First copy the script deploy/backup/win/backup.ps1 to the main qatrackplus directory:

cd C:\deploy\qatrackplus
cp deploy\win\backup.ps1 .

Then edit the backup.ps1 file and set the configuration variables appropriately.

Next open the Task Scheduler and select Create Task in the Action menu.

On the General tab set the Name field to QATrack+ Backup (or similar). Check the Run whether user is logged on or not checkbox.

On the Triggers tab click New and select Daily and choose the Start date and Time (e.g. 3am) and Recur every to 1 then click OK.

Now go to the Actions tab and click New then enter PowerShell.exe in the Program/Script field and -ExecutionPolicy Bypass C:\deploy\qatrackplus\backup.ps1 in the Add Arguments field.

Now save your scheduled task and run it and manually to confirm it worked correctly.