WordPress MU

Is anyone using the WP DBManager plugin? Any problems? Alternatives to this plugin?

Thanks!
Elchanan

Googling pulls up a number of plugins with that name. A link would be helpful. We're not using anything like that though.

Sorry, sure ... here is the specific plugin to which I refer:

http://lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-dbmanager.html

In a larger sense, I'm curious what plugin(s), if any, people use successfully to backup and otherwise manage their WPMU databases.

I realize this can all be done using phpmyadmin ... and I'd LOVE to delegate some tasks, too! :)

Thanks for your help!
Elchanan

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/ also works very well.

Database backups: a regular cron job batch file on the server. no WP plugins. DB backups are a server job, not a WP job. Why fire it all up if you don't have to?

Google has plenty enough scripts out there to do this, also some hosts have a nifty button on the backend cpanel called "make a backup" as well as generating full backups every so often.
(although you should always maintain your own copy)

Oh, cPanel has a backup capability that enables us to download a backup to our local machine. Voila! Our own copy!! I never knew that ... thanks Andrea!

And thanks mercime for suggesting an alternate plugin.

Now I see/realize an useful distinction: the WP plugins will only work with the WP database (though I imagine this could be changed by fiddling with the code ... but why?). Using cPanel or a cron job can handle ALL databases, and other content, as well.

I do have one follow-up question: I notice that the plugins speak of optimizing, repairing, etc. the database, as well as backups and restores. From a practical perspective, what do "optimzing" and "repairing" mean?

Learning ... thanks,
Elchanan

Optimize compresses the data in the db after some things have been deleted. Like compacting your mail folders in outlook.

Repairing is just that. If something goes wonky and a particular table is messed up (you'll know, believe me) then you can run "repair" on the table and it will try and fix it.

well, to be honest, there are two good plugins the one mentioned above and another one. the problem with both is, that if you give access to users to it, they can backup the whole database.

I'd love to see someone mod the plugin so it only allows people to backup their own blog, byt filtering wp_prefix_BLOGID so people only download their part database tables.

does that make sense to you?

Yeah, it makes sense - but why would they need database tables over using the export file?

They still can't get all the tables they need to port it over to a single WP install.

hmmm. right, what tables would they be missing? I was thinking all tables i.e. wp_015_* would contain all of a blog's tables? ah, I see I guess stuff that is in wp_usermeta tables and the likes would be missing...

Yep.