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VaultPress

  • VaultPress is an automated backup, stored in an offsite digital vault in real-time.
  • VaultPress is available for every site on VIP and runs hourly backups of a site’s SQL database.
  • The database backups generated by VaultPress are provided for use in a local development environment.
  • VaultPress backup files can be imported to local development environments, but cannot be imported directly to a VIP environment because of the format and content of the backups as detailed below.

Content of a VaultPress backup

  • Only wp_-prefixed tables are included in VaultPress backups.
  • On a multisite environment, subsites are backed up individually by VaultPress. WordPress database tables that are shared by the entire multisite can be accessed in the VaultPress backups for subsite ID 1.
  • VaultPress backups do not contain the files associated with the media library. A copy of your media library can be requested in a VIP support ticket.

Accessing VaultPress backups

With a VaultPress user account, VaultPress backups can be accessed from a site’s WordPress Admin dashboard, by selecting VaultPress under the Jetpack menu.

A VaultPress user can be added by submitting a request to VIP Support and including the following information:

  • The username or email address associated with the user’s WordPress.com account.
  • The Site Address (URL) of the VIP site for which they would like to access backups.

A user can create a WordPress.com account without having to create a blog or site by visiting: https://wordpress.com/start/account

Importing VaultPress backups for local development

Once downloaded, VaultPress backup filess can be imported into a local development environment using the WP-CLI command wp db import.

To avoid creating Jetpack conflicts with the production site, add define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true ); to the local environment’s wp-config.php to put Jetpack into offline development mode.

Disabling VaultPress

To disable VaultPress on a given environment, the VIP_VAULTPRESS_SKIP_LOAD constant can be defined in a repository’s vip-config.php file to disable VaultPress and prevent it from loading:

define('VIP_VAULTPRESS_SKIP_LOAD', true);

VIP database backups

In addition to VaultPress, the VIP platform stores database backups in a separate process. The VIP backups are taken hourly for production sites and daily for non-production sites, regardless of whether VaultPress is enabled.

Last updated: July 14, 2021

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