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Back up every site to Google Drive with ReDock Web

Connect a Google account once, and every day ReDock Web copies a full backup of each connected site into that account’s Drive: the site’s files and its database, dated, in a folder of its own. The last fourteen copies of each site stay there. Older ones are deleted.

The copies are yours. They sit in your own Google account, ReDock keeps none of them, and they stay where they are if you stop paying for ReDock.

Connect a Google account

Section titled “Connect a Google account”

  1. Open Settings, then Google Drive. Before anything is connected, the section says where the copies will go, what ReDock may see in your Drive and how to stop it.

    The Settings page with its list of sections on the left, Google Drive among them, and the Google Drive section before any account is connected. It reads Keep a copy of every backup somewhere ReDock cannot lose it, and explains that every night ReDock copies each connected site’s full backup, its files and its database, into a folder in your own Drive and keeps the last 14. Below that it says where the copies go, what ReDock may see and how to stop it, above a Connect Google Drive button.

    Only an owner or an admin of the workspace can connect a Drive.

  2. Press Connect Google Drive and approve on Google’s own screen. ReDock asks for the files it creates itself and nothing else, so it could not open a document of yours if it tried.

  3. You come back to Settings with the Google account named. ReDock makes a folder called ReDock backups in that Drive, and each site gets a folder inside it.

    The Google Drive section once connected. Connected as names the Google account with a Connected pill. Folder links to ReDock backups, with one folder per site inside it. Kept says the last 14 dated copies of each site are kept and older ones removed. Last run says 4 hours ago, 4 sites copied. Connected by names the person and the date, above a Disconnect button.

That is the whole of the setup. There is no schedule to pick and nothing to press again.

What happens each day

Section titled “What happens each day”

For every connected site, once a day:

  1. ReDock asks the site, over ReDock Connect’s own signed connection, to build a full archive of its files and its database. The site builds it on its own server, which uses some of its disk for a while.
  2. ReDock carries the archive into the site’s folder in your Drive, one piece at a time. Each piece is checked against the fingerprint the site sent with it, so a piece that arrives damaged stops the copy instead of ending up inside it.
  3. Once a site has more than fourteen copies, the oldest is deleted. ReDock deletes only the files it recorded writing. It never lists the folder and never touches anything else in your Drive.

Nothing of the archive is stored by ReDock on the way through.

A big site can take longer than one run. When that happens, the next run carries on from where Google says the upload got to. If the site had to start its archive again in between, the half-finished copy is deleted from your Drive and a fresh one begins, so a partial backup never sits there under today’s date. And when a workspace has more sites than one run can reach, the ones it missed go first the next time.

Read the list of sites

Section titled “Read the list of sites”

Under the account, every connected site has a row.

The list of sites under the Google Drive section, with columns for Site, Last copy, Size, Kept and In your Drive. Three sites are Ready, with copies 4 to 6 hours old and links to their files and database. One is Working, started 40 minutes ago, with a progress bar. A new site says Not used yet, with 0 of 14 kept. A note underneath says every file is in your own Google Drive and stays there if you stop paying ReDock, and that restoring one means downloading it and putting it back the way your host restores a backup.

Column What it tells you
Last copy Ready and when it finished, Working with a bar while a copy is under way, or Not used yet for a site with no copy so far
Size how big the last copy was
Kept how many of the fourteen are in your Drive
In your Drive links to the site’s files and its database

Last run, above the list, says when ReDock last ran and how many sites it copied.

When a copy fails

Section titled “When a copy fails”

Trouble shows in one of two places.

Google refused the run. A red notice sits at the top of the section with Google’s own words and the time of the last copy that worked. If somebody removed ReDock’s access in the Google account, the notice tells you to press Disconnect and connect again.

A red notice at the top of the Google Drive section reading Google refused the last run, followed by Google’s own error, invalid_grant: Token has been expired or revoked. Underneath it says nothing has been copied since a given date and time, and that if you removed ReDock in your own Google account, to press Disconnect below and connect again.

One site could not be copied. The reason sits under that site’s row. In this one, the host had 1.1 GB free and the archive needed about 2.4 GB, so the site could not build it.

Two rows of the site list. One site is Ready, with its files and database in the Drive. The other is marked Failed 4 hours ago, with the sentence that the site could not build the archive because the live host has 1.1 GB free and the archive needs about 2.4 GB, and to free some space and try again.

A failed copy is not emailed to anyone, so this section is where you find out. It is worth a look now and then.

Restore from a copy

Section titled “Restore from a copy”

Each copy is two downloads, the files and the database, and the links in the list open them in your Drive. Restoring means downloading them and putting them back the way your host restores a backup. ReDock does not restore from Drive itself.

Disconnect

Section titled “Disconnect”

Disconnect… opens a confirm that lists what will happen, in order.

A confirm headed Disconnect and the Google account’s address. It says this is what happens, in order: ReDock’s access to that Google account is revoked at Google so the connection stops working at once, no more copies are made from tonight, the 14 copies already in your Drive stay exactly where they are and ReDock does not touch them again, and ReDock forgets which files it wrote so reconnecting starts a fresh set of fourteen beside them. Cancel and Disconnect buttons sit underneath.

Access is revoked at Google straight away and no more copies are made. The copies already in your Drive stay where they are, and ReDock never touches them again. Connect later and a fresh set of fourteen starts beside the old ones.

You can also remove ReDock from the Google account itself. Either way, the copies already made stay yours.

The archive a WordPress update needs

Section titled “The archive a WordPress update needs”

ReDock will not update WordPress core on a site whose last full backup is more than 24 hours old, and this daily copy is where that backup comes from. See Update WordPress core.

Open ReDock Web, or create an account if you do not have one yet.