Recovery after server failure

Back in March, some how I caused my server to crash beyond its capability to boot. I did a smart thing and had weekly backups to an off-site location. After getting the server back up, I discovered I lost the encryption key to my backup. Fast forward to about a week ago, I found a way around the encryption key trouble. Won't allow me to write to the backup, but I can read, so I recovered all my data. Only one problem, for some reason the database for my composr site couldn't be recovered. I have all my images, and the whole installation, but no database. I found where the images are stored, but cannot seem to find (could just not be looking in the right place? I hope?) where any of the text from news posts would go. Is that stored in the database and is lost forever?

Hello, sorry to hear that. Hopefully you may find the answer or a clue in this tutorial:-
Composr Tutorial: Disaster recovery - Composr

If not, someone who can give you a definitive answer will pop along given time. I do believe posts would be stored in the database but if you have backups you should be able to recover them.

Hiya,

Thank you for the reply. I don't think that would help me, as I should have the database, even if it were corrupted, but the database isn't downloading at all, could be just because going around the encryption key? The backup software was JetBackup. Even emails weren't recovered.

Can you talk a little more about the format that the recovered data is in? Like, do you have all your html and php files for the site?

Are you 100% sure the settings on JetBackup were set to also backup the database? If so, then JetBackup might have asked you for a database username and password. Do you remember giving JetBackup a username and password for the database?

Did JetBackup save the /etc folder? If so, can you locate the database save-location in /etc/mysql/*.conf or something similar? Databse files may be stored in /var/lib/mysql or something similar. Perhaps /var/local/mysql or something.

If JetBackup was set to backup your database also, and if JetBackup never asked you for a username and password to the database, then it would have tried to locate your database files and just back them up. Those database files were probably located in /var/mysql or something. (Assuming you're using Linux, not Windows, to host your site).

My worry is that JetBackup *only* backed up your site (everything in public_html) and not config files or databases ( which were located in /etc and /var )

Everything a website user/visitor types in, like forum posts and vote poll posts and profile changes and all that, are stored in the database. The images are not stored in the database because they are kinda big files, so the database stores a pointer to the pictures, but stores the pictures in a seperate file outside the database (in other words, pictures are not stored in the database, but pointers to where various pictures are located, are).

Lastly, are there any hidden files? SOme files can have *hidden* attribute set, so they can't be seen, normally. To see them in Unix, we do:  ls -la

 

I'm quoting this to break it apart as I have comments on various parts.

Malatesa said

Can you talk a little more about the format that the recovered data is in? Like, do you have all your html and php files for the site?

I have all the HTML and PHP files for the site, as far as how it is backed up, I am unsure.

Malatesa said

Are you 100% sure the settings on JetBackup were set to also backup the database? If so, then JetBackup might have asked you for a database username and password. Do you remember giving JetBackup a username and password for the database?

I am 98% sure that I had the settings for JetBackup to backup the database. It was a little over a year ago since I set it up, and forgot about it, so that is where the 2% of uncertainty comes from. I do not remember giving JetBackup database passwords, but it could have just been part of integration with DirectAdmin?

Malatesa said

Did JetBackup save the /etc folder? If so, can you locate the database save-location in /etc/mysql/*.conf or something similar? Databse files may be stored in /var/lib/mysql or something similar. Perhaps /var/local/mysql or something.

I am not sure about backing up the /etc folder. I know it changed the admin password to DirectAdmin. I will pull the backup again and check when I have more spare time.

Malatesa said

If JetBackup was set to backup your database also, and if JetBackup never asked you for a username and password to the database, then it would have tried to locate your database files and just back them up. Those database files were probably located in /var/mysql or something. (Assuming you're using Linux, not Windows, to host your site).

Server was running Debian 10 at the time.

Malatesa said

My worry is that JetBackup *only* backed up your site (everything in public_html) and not config files or databases ( which were located in /etc and /var )

Everything a website user/visitor types in, like forum posts and vote poll posts and profile changes and all that, are stored in the database. The images are not stored in the database because they are kinda big files, so the database stores a pointer to the pictures, but stores the pictures in a seperate file outside the database (in other words, pictures are not stored in the database, but pointers to where various pictures are located, are).

Lastly, are there any hidden files? SOme files can have *hidden* attribute set, so they can't be seen, normally. To see them in Unix, we do:  ls -la

Again, I'll check for all this when I have a little more spare time to pull the backup again. I restored the backup to a VM to recover my data, then deleted the VM after I poked around trying to find everything, but not knowing where or how deep to look, I didn't stray from the public_html folder. I still do have the JetBackup files.