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Backup and recovery

The Backup plugin packages tinymash exports as downloadable ZIP archives. Enable it under System > Plugins when interactive backup and restore are required.

Author export

Every signed-in user can download their author data. The bundle contains the sanitized profile, owned content, drafts, media, and supported data from active plugins that register an author export contributor.

Site backup

Superadmins can download a site backup containing configuration, users, content, drafts, media, and supported site data from active plugin contributors.

Download the archive to storage outside the tinymash installation. A backup left only on the same filesystem is not sufficient protection against disk loss, account compromise, or an incorrect deployment.

Verification

Current bundles include a sorted inventory with file paths, sizes, and SHA-256 hashes. Import and restore validate the structure and inventory before changing site data.

Keep more than one generation and test that an archive can be inspected. An untested download is not a verified recovery plan.

Restoring a site

Restore is superadmin-only:

  1. Upload the site-backup ZIP for inspection.
  2. Review archive identity, format, counts, included components, and conflicts with current data.
  3. Confirm that the archive and target installation are correct.
  4. Apply with the required checkbox and exact RESTORE confirmation.

The archive is validated again immediately before import. Core configuration, users, content, drafts, and media are snapshotted for rollback during the operation. Plugin contributors own their storage and error policy, so their effects are reported separately and are outside the core-file rollback transaction.

A successful restore clears derived caches and signs out the current admin because user records, passwords, and login paths may have changed.

Limits

The Backup plugin does not schedule backups or send them to remote storage. Host-level backup, retention, encryption, offsite transfer, monitoring, and disaster-recovery testing remain operator responsibilities.

Use staged release upgrades for application code. A site backup protects authoritative state; it does not replace the clean sibling upgrade procedure or preserve arbitrary third-party extension code and host configuration.