How to Back Up and Restore Your Database in osCommerce
Today’s e-commerce platforms are incredibly sophisticated, and osCommerce, which is one of the most advanced, is also completely free and open source. One of the most powerful aspects of osCommerce is its built-in database and its advanced database functionality. A main reason why osCommerce is so popular, outside of price, is convenience, and it’s that way because it simplifies the normally complex process of managing a database for an online store. The most common database operations are backup and restore, and with osCommerce, the user can accomplish both of these tasks with just a couple of button clicks.
How to Back Up and Restore Your Database
• Log in to your activated osCommerce account using your username and password.
• This video tutorial assumes that you have a valid account and have already logged in.
• After logging in, you’ll be at the main page of the osCommerce control panel.
• In the main area, the panel consists of a series of clickable categories and subcategories, also called actions.
• Locate the category labeled Tools, which is typically in the lower right-hand corner.
• Beneath the Tools label is a series of actions.
• Locate the Backup action listed below Tools and click on it.
• This action navigates you to the Database Backup Manager panel.
• On this panel, you have a series of database operations available to you, including backup and restore.
• The backup and restore pages should be in the upper right-hand corner of the current page.
• To back up the database, click the Backup button.
• A new panel will appear with several options as well as a Backup and Cancel button.
• Click Backup to execute the backup process.
• Click Cancel to cancel the backup process.
• Once you have backed up the database at least once, it’ll appear in the database listing in the center panel.
• It is possible to have to have multiple database backups, which you can restore or delete.
• To do so, highlight a database entry by clicking on it.
• Then click restore, and click restore again to confirm.
• Or click delete, and click delete again to confirm.
• For testing purposes, you can back up the database, restore that backup and then delete it.
More about osCommerce
When backing up an osCommerce database, most users can just use the default configuration. There are, however, some advanced options for those who need them. For instance, osCommerce offers the option of compression via GZIP. The default option is no compression, or persistence as pure SQL. This is a trade-off of size versus speed. Pure SQL is much faster, but compression is a better option if you plan to have numerous backups. Another option is “download only,” which you select by marking a check box. This option is useful when you want an instance of the database to analyze or store locally but don’t want keep a copy of it on the server.
