How to Backup WordPress Multisite with Ease : Step-by-Step Guide

The website data present online follows a complex structure having multiple sites in pictures, hard-wired configurations to maintain, and numerous users' sensitive data to safeguard. Managing this WordPress multisite can bring up potential threats and risks to your databases and files which can lead to fatal data loss that is difficult to mitigate or debilitate at the time of disaster or network loss. Here is the step-by-step guide for “How to Backup your WordPress Multisite” for you to adhere to to maintain your data’s continued health and implement the backup procedures to ensure your network remains stable and secure in the long run.

What is WordPress Multisite Network

WordPress Multisite is a feature that allows you to run multiple WordPress websites from a single installation, providing centralized management for all sites within the network. When you setup WordPress Multisite network, you can create a network of sites that share the same WordPress codebase, plugins, and themes, but each site can have its own unique content, settings, and users. The network is managed through a central dashboard known as the "Network Admin," where you can control all aspects of the sites, such as installing plugins, themes, managing users, and setting permissions. Sites in a Multisite network can be created with either subdomains (e.g., site1.example.com) or subdirectories (e.g., example.com/site1), making it easier to scale multiple sites with consistent structure and features.

The main advantages of WordPress Multisite include efficiency, resource savings, and simplified site management. You only need to install and update WordPress once, making maintenance easier across all sites. Additionally, all sites share server resources, reducing overhead. Themes and plugins can be managed centrally, with network-wide updates available to all sites. However, it's important to consider that plugins and themes are shared across the network, and individual site customization is limited. When you setup WordPress Multisite network, it's ideal for projects like blog networks, educational platforms, corporate websites, or agencies managing multiple client sites. While it offers many benefits, Multisite may be more complex to manage than individual WordPress installations, and it's best suited for users who need to handle multiple sites with shared infrastructure.

Why backup WordPress Multisite?

While WordPress provides you with an abundant range of diverse avenues and components making it an essential asset for your organization, it also comes with a variety of security breaches elevating the risk of data compromise and increasing the danger of data corruption substantially. Some of the key reasons to back up the WordPress Multisite Network include prominent content security, intellectual property protection, resilient system restoration efficiently to increase scalability, and protection of data integrity.

1. Content Security and Data Leakage Prevention

Backups act as an ideal choice for WordPress Multisite networks when it comes to preserving important and sensitive organizational data. In case of any server crash or data corruption, you are provided with the ability to access your data again with the backup created for the website. Sometimes, online malware attacks and threats can also give rise to the loss of critical assets of the organization leading to huge revenue loss and breaching of security. Protecting your data from such a vulnerable environment is a must, and WordPress Multisite network backup becomes a prime choice for any organization.

2. Crisis Management

There is a considerable amount of chance that your server could lose all of its data in case of a server crash due to any natural or technical disasters occurring suddenly. It can destroy the scalability and sometimes integrity of the website and backing up your WordPress Multisite network can help you prevent such incidents. By prioritizing the WordPress Multisite network backup and migration, you can protect and access your data anytime even after a disaster occurrence or any accidental loss caused by user mistakes such as the misconfiguration of settings of the website which leads to data loss. 

3. Operational Resilience

In case of server migration, backing up your WordPress Multisite network helps you to seamlessly hand over to the new server and mitigate the risks of potential data loss in the procedure. Backing up your WordPress Multisite Network regularly also helps minimize the downtime of the website when any of accidental occurrences happen. It also ensures to follow the organizational vision of protecting and safeguarding the propriety information of the clients and valuing their property prominently. 

4. Liberty and Versatility

Backing up your Multisite Network can also provide you with the chance to experiment with the WordPress multisite by carrying out testing and development concerning your preferences anytime by keeping your data protected from any potential changes made. It also provides you the flexibility of the efficient recovery of the site data at your disposal. With scheduled backups, you can be guaranteed and be rest assured that your data is secured and is easily accessible right at your command.

How to backup WordPress Multisite Network?

To protect and safeguard your online presence, you must ensure that you have your WordPress Multisite Network backup to mitigate any risks of losing your overall data. There are multiple ways to follow to easily backup your WordPress Multisite Network fitting to your preferences and requirements. Here are some of the easy methods and step-by-step guides for a complete WordPress Multisite Backup solution to be followed for easy WordPress Multisite backup and leverage the WordPress Multisite backup tools and their solutions for a perfect WordPress Multisite Backup and Security.

Method 01: Backup using a Right Multisite Plugin

Choosing the right and best  WordPress backup plugins for your WordPress Multisite network helps you to ensure that your site and data are protected and can easily be restored in case of occurrence of any issues. Go through the reviews and ratings of the multiple backup plugins to find suitable ones depending on your needs and requirements. Multisite backup plugins such as Duplicator, UpdraftPlus, Snapshot Pro, or WP Multisite Backup can be optimal choices for your WordPress Multisite network.

• Step 01: Log in to your WordPress multisite network dashboard and select the Plugins page by navigating to the “Plugins” page from the “Network Admin” tab.

• Step 02: Click on the “Add New” button to add your chosen plugin to the WordPress plugin directory. Click on “Install now” to download and install the plugin.

• Step 03: Click on the “Activate” button to activate the plugin network-wide after successful plugin installation.
• Step 04: Navigate to the configuration settings page present in the “Settings” or “Network Admin” tab.

Configure the plugin’s general settings like the Backup schedule to have routine backups on a specific date and time, backup retention to allocate several backups to be kept, and storage location such as local drive, Google Drive, etc. You can also set up any other additional components like Database and file backups, email notifications, and the inclusion or exclusion of particular files and directories from backups. Save the modified changes.

• Step 05: Navigate to the “Network Admin” tab and select the plugins backup page.
• Step 06: Click on Create Backup or Run Backup. Select the sites you need to backup in case you do not wish to backup all the sites present. Choose the backup options such as full-backup or database backup, including or excluding specific files or directories backup.
• Step 07: Click Start Backup and wait for the backup to complete successfully.
• Step 08: Do a diagnostic check over the plugin’s backup log to make sure that the backup has been completed with no issues or errors.

Also, check if the backup folder has been stored in the assigned location and test the backup by trying to restore the database or the site without any glitches or issues.

• Step 09: Navigate to the settings page of the plugin where you can set up a recursive backup routine fitting to your needs and preferences. Save the changes.
• Step 10: Monitor and manage the plugin’s backup log to avoid the presence of any persistent errors or issues. 

You can also follow the process of maintaining the security of the WordPress Multisite backup by enforcing strong passwords, using two-factor authentication encrypted coupled with enabling SSL certificate, monitoring for any malware attacks, and keeping all the plugins and WordPress updated to avoid any vulnerabilities. Moreover you can also enable the automatic backup on your website, to get a detailed guide you can also refer to our blog on Automatic WordPress Backup using this tutorial.

You can create a disaster recovery plan strategically by updating your recovery plan with regular backup tests and identifying critical plugin systems by monitoring plugin activity to detect any risks concerning security.

Method 02: Backup using an FTP/SFTP Client

A reliable FTP/SFTP client can be used to back up your WordPress multisite network manually by providing you with the options to securely download your network files and database with regular backups, network security, and disaster recovery to avoid any potential data loss. Here are some of the simple steps to be followed to manually backup your files and directories using the FTP client.

• Step 01: Choose a reliable FTP/SFTP client like FileZilla, Cyberduck, Transmit, CuteFTP and much more depending on your tailored requirements by checking through the reviews and ratings and your budget.
• Step 02: Download the FTP/SFTP client from its official website and follow the steps and instructions to install the client successfully on your system. If you want a detailed guide on how to install WordPress using FTP then you can visit our blog to get a proper step by step guide.
• Step 03: Once the successful installation is done, configure the FTP/SFTP client.

                           

• Step 04: Navigate to the “File” button present in the “Site Manager” tab to create a new connection. Enter the information related to your host and port.

Add the FTP/SFTP client as your protocol along with your FTP/SFTP username and password. Click on “Connect” to successfully create your connection.

• Step 05: Once the connection is established, navigate to the WordPress Multisite Network Directory typically named “public_html”.

Select the files and directories you want to download by right-clicking the selected files and directories and choosing “Download”. Choose the local directory to save the downloaded files and directories.

• Step 06: Verify that the files and directories have been successfully downloaded to your local drive. Check for the database export to ensure that it is completely functional and complete.
• Step 07: Consider encrypting the backup for prominent security to your files and prefer storing the backup in an external hard drive or a cloud storage system.

Method 03: Backup using Cloud

By leveraging the potential of your cloud storage, you can safeguard for any potential backup risks and save fatal data loss by choosing a reliable cloud-based backup storage service that can ensure your WordPress Multisite network is protected from server crashes or malicious attacks online.

Here are the steps to be followed if you wish to rely on a versatile cloud backup service.

• Step 01: Choose a secured cloud-based backup service like Duplicator with cloud storage, Google Cloud Storage, or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage.
• Step 02: Register yourself on the official website of your preferred cloud-based backup service by signing up with your email and verifying the same.
• Step 03: If there are any backup plugins required for your chosen cloud-based backup service, install the same on your WordPress Multisite network and configure the plugin settings such as data schedule, data retention, and cloud storage location.

• Step 04: Get the access credentials or API key from your cloud-based backup service and enter the same in your backup plugin settings to authorize the backup plugin to access the cloud-based backup service provided.

• Step 05: Set the backup schedule and backup retention depending upon your fitted preferences, choose the files and databases to wish to backup in routine, and select the cloud storage location for the same.
• Step 06: To test if the configuration is successful, run the backup and verify if the backup is successful and files are stored at the chosen cloud location.
• Step 07: Monitor and manage backups by doing regular checks on the backup logs to identify any persistent issues or glitches during multiple runs. Update the backup plugin just in case it has gone outdated and needs an update. 
• Step 08: During a disaster, the backup plugin can be used to restore the WordPress multisite network from the cloud-based backup. To restore the files and databases, follow the provided details and instructions for the backup plugin.

Till now we saw ho wot backup a multisite network but if you are a single Website user who wants to backup their website we do have a proper tutorial guide for them also, visit our blog on how to backup WordPress website.

How to fix the issues while backing up WordPress Multisite Network

While backing up the WordPress Multisite network, there are several chances where your data could face issues in successfully saving your work in backup leading to a significant amount of data loss. Here are some of the common issues faced by the user while carrying out the backup procedure of the WordPress Multisite.

Network Related Issues

As WordPress Multisite network consume a substantial amount of data consisting of numerous websites with complex functionalities and content, one can face incomplete backups, crashes, and backup interruptions due to insufficient server resources and complex network structure. Making sure you have enough server resources at your disposal can help you avoid incomplete backups. Incompatible or conflicting plugins and themes can also cause issues in backing up your data leading to failure of data backup. Optimizing network settings for better performance helps you hedge against the risks of data vulnerability.

Database Related Issues

There are strong possibilities of failure of database backup as multisite networks have significant amounts of complex and large databases. Your database could likely be corrupted during the ongoing backup procedure leading to a substantial amount of database loss or failed backups. Invalid or incompatible versions of the database can also give rise to failures in backup processes and amplify the risk of database leakage or loss. Verifying the database versions, checking for any database corruptions, and using database plugins for repairing and optimizing the database can help prevent harm to your database.

File System Issues 

Large files present in the WordPress Multisite give rise to various challenges in backing up and restoring your data. It can lead to corrupted backups and failure in backing up your data fully leading to incomplete or invalid backups. There is a good chance for the file system to corrupt during the process if the incompatible or invalid files are backing up during the process making it difficult for you to have your data intact in the future to restore from. Checking file system permissions by running a check or using a cleanup plugin can help avoid the risks of file corruption.

Backup Plugin Related Issues

Incompatible backup plugins, misconfigured plugins, or conflicting plugins might cause issues during the backup procedure. Identifying contradicting plugins or the ones that are conflicting to the Premium WordPress themes or other running plugins, and disabling the same can help sidestep the chances of potential data breach. You can also utilize any organizing plugin to organize your plugins, manage plugin loads, or switch to a better alternative concerning the backup plugin can act as a proactive cautionary way to protect your data.

Conclusion

Backing up your WordPress Multisite Network can be the ideal option to protect your data from potential loss and disasters. Leveraging this guide can help you to know the best practices to backup your WordPress Multisite Network where you can set up a reliable system for the backup, and help you rest assured that your data is safe and secured, helping you to check off the task to keep a regular check on your website data. Ensure that you have created a strategic backup and data recovery plan for your website and remember to run diagnostic tests in routine to maintain the integrity and data’s health efficiently.