#This module is deprecated, I don't recommend using it.

##Introduction

Unfortunately lower versions of Magento don't actually have the feature to automate you databases backups, I believe they introduced this in Magento 1.7.

When I coded this solution I had to roll it out on multiple Magento stores of varied versions so I have assumed that the feature to automate backups is not enabled. If you have configured these backups using Magento's cron you will need to disable this, otherwise I have released this code on GitHub if you would like to adapt it to suit your needs.

This module will automatically create a backup of your Magento database at your chosen time, transfer the backup to Amazon S3 and then remove it from your server.

##Setting up the Magento Cron

If you haven't setup the Magento Cron's to run you will need to do this. I am using a CenTOS server with a LAMP setup. Here is how you setup the Magento Cron on most Linux based servers, once you are logged in:

crontab -e

Now add this:

*/5 * * * * /bin/sh /path/to/your/magento/installation/cron.sh

This will mean the Magento crons are hit every 5 minutes.

##Amazon S3 Library

So Donovan Schönknecht, or Typo, has made a really great Amazon S3 PHP Class we can add to our Magento Lib folder. To find this please see his Amazon S3 PHP Class Github page, you will need to download S3.php from there.

##Installation

modman clone [email protected]:tpyo/amazon-s3-php-class.git

##Setting Up The Configuration

To set up the configuration you will need to first clear the cache, then go to System > Configuration > Amazon > S3 Backups.

You can get your Amazon Access Key and Amazon Secret Key from the Amazon console, the Bucket Name is the bucket you create yourself in Amazon S3. Once you have enabled the module continue to the next step.

##Manually Testing the Module

Ideally you don't want to be waiting around for a cron job to run to test your backups are syncing. To manually test the backup you will need to call the function which initiates the backups, this can be run from any page and should be done in a development environment.

Mage::getModel('brideo_amazon/s3')->prepareBackup();

##Changing The Time Which The Backup Runs

I have set up this module to run at 1am by default as this is when our website aren't very busy, to change this you will need to edit:

	app/code/local/Brideo/Amazon/etc/config.xml

Find the line which represents the cron expression and edit it to suit your needs;

<schedule><cron_expr>0 1 * * *</cron_expr></schedule>