If you have spent weeks developing your new Joomla! web site then the last thing you want is to loose all your hard work because of one of the following.

1) Web hosting company shuts down and you can not access your data.

2) During an upgrade or server move your MYSQL database gets corrupted.

3) Your Joomla site gets hacked.

In the event of any of the above it is very important that you make a backup of both your core Joomla files plus the MYSQL database so you can recover your web site.

You have a number of options to backup your Joomla web site.

Option 1 - Control panel backup

Most web hosting companies now provide the option to complete a full backup of your public_html directory or MYSQL database. The most common control panel which hosting companies offer is called CPanel.

To complete a full site back using Cpanel method which will do a complete backup of you public_html directory on the server plus the MYSQL database please complete the following. This is one of the quickest methods of doing a site backup as you can recover the site in a matter of minutes.

Full site backup

1) Enter the following in your browser http://www.mywebsite.com/cpanel

2) Fron the main control panel select the backup option.

3) From here you will have the option to complete a backup of your home directory or mysql database.

4) Select the home directory backup which will backup all your files located on the root of your server which includes anything in the public_html or WWW directory plus your mysql database

5) Once the backup is complete its will be stored in a zip file which you can upload using the same approach if you need to recover your Joomla web site or you can unzip the package and uplaod the files via FTP. This one of the most important things you will do when running a web site. You only need to complete this once if you do not plan to change any of the files on the server.

MYSQL Database Backup

To backup just the MYSQL databse you can use the same approach as above but this time select the Download a MySQL Database Backup. I would recommend you do this on a weekly basis. Again you can easily recover the database via the control panel if you need to.

If you wish to do a manual backup of your MYSQL database please refer to the topic MYSQL database backup