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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: profile, owned content, drafts, media, and data from active plugins that support author exports. Comments on that author's posts and pages are included even while Comments is inactive. Subscriber lists, site-wide privacy requests, rate-limit records, and mail queues are excluded.

Site backup

Superadmins can download a site backup containing settings, users, content, drafts, media, and data from active plugins that support backups. Comments and Subscriptions data are included even while either plugin is inactive. If an active plugin fails to export its data, Backup stops rather than producing an incomplete archive.

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.

tinymash checks the archive again before restoring it. It saves the current settings, users, content, drafts, and media so it can put them back if the restore fails. Plugins handle their own data changes, which are reported separately and may need review after a failure.

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

A restored plugin mail queue may contain old pending messages. Keep delivery paused and review the queue before sending resumes.

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.