How do I restore my data from an (mt) backup?
Overview
Our system maintains regular backups of all customer data for disaster recovery purposes. While we keep these mainly for our own uses, we can accommodate customer requests in the rare case that your own self-managed backups do not contain the data you need.
(mt) Media Temple provides NO GUARANTEE that the data you need will be available. We encourage all customers to maintain their own backups. We offer this service only as a last-resort measure to customers who have exhausted all other means of retrieving their data. In the event that we cannot recover the needed data, there will be no charge.
NOTE:
This is for data recovery of specific files and/or databases only. This will not restore your server or website to previous version.
Requirements
You must have already submitted an Emergency Restore Request form and been informed by (mt) Media Temple that a data recovery is possible for you.
If you have not submitted your Emergency Restore Request, please do so in your AccountCenter. We require the exact name and path of the file, folder, or database. If you require a full account recovery, please specify whether you need all files, databases, or both.
Instructions
The data you requested has been uploaded to your server. The path is:
- data/restore
- /restore, /RESTORE, or /Restore
Flat files
For flat files, such as images, HTML, CSS, Javascript, or PHP files: You can connect to your server either via SSH or FTP and simply move the files to their appropriate location on your server. For detailed instructions, please see:
- Connecting to your server via SSH
- Connecting to your server via SSH
- Connecting to your server via SSH
- Using FTP and SFTP
- Using FTP and SFTP
The directory /restore/ is owned by the root user. The file permissions for your files will be preserved.
For email, our System Administrators will restore this for you.
For email, you can run this command to copy the messages:
cp -pr /restore/mailnames/example.com/username/Maildir/ /var/qmail/mailnames/example.com/username/Maildir/
Be sure to replace example.com and username with your domain and username.
MySQL databases
For a MySQL database, the data will be in a .sql file. For detailed instructions on how to import this, please see: Export and import MySQL databases.
Please keep in mind that phpMyAdmin can be used to import your database if it is relatively small, 10 MB or less. If it is larger than 10 MB, you will need to follow the instructions for "Method 2 - command line."
For a MySQL database, the raw data will be in /restore/var/lib/mysql. We have created a command to create the .sql file for you. Connect to your server via SSH and run this command:
/usr/local/mt/bin/mib --restoredbs --apply
Once the .sql file is created, you will need to import it manually. For instructions, please see: Export and import MySQL databases.