6Scan's backup feature is engineered to complete successfully on as many configurations as possible. However, unfortunately, there are certain configurations we are unable to support due to system limitations. This article details the requirements for a successful backup and what can be done about each one.
If you run into any trouble with any of these recommendations, please feel free to contact us at support@6scan.com.
System Requirements
Operating system
Safe mode
Max execution time
Libcurl
Libcurl SSL
Passthru() execution is disabled
No mysqldump exists
Operating system
Due to lack of available tools on other platforms, 6Scan can only support backing up sites on Linux/Unix servers.
Safe mode
PHP safe mode prevents 6Scan from running external programs and creating backup files.
If you are running on a shared hosting platform, you may be able to change the PHP safe_mode setting from your hosting control panel (e.g. cPanel). Your hosting provider should be able to provide help in doing this if you cannot find the setting.
If you are familiar with php.ini, PHP's configuration file, and have access to it, you can correct the problem by finding the "safe_mode" line and changing it to "safe_mode = Off". Please note that it is not considered insecure to turn safe mode off; in fact, newer versions of PHP have removed this mode entirely.
You can read more about PHP's safe mode here: http://php.net/manual/en/features.safe-mode.php and here: http://php.net/safe-mode.
Some servers are configured to only allow your scripts to run for a limited amount of time before terminating them. Creating and uploading your backup files can take some time, especially for larger sites, so your server must allow increasing the maximum execution time in order for the backup to complete successfully.
If you are running on a shared hosting platform, you may be able to change the PHP max_execution_time setting from your hosting control panel (e.g. cPanel). Your hosting provider should be able to provide help in doing this if you cannot find the setting.
If you are familiar with php.ini, PHP's configuration file, and have access to it, you can correct the problem by finding the "max_execution_time" line and changing it to "max_execution_time = 1801".
You can read more about max_execution_time directive here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/info.configuration.php#ini.max-execution-time.
6Scan's backup scripts use libcurl to reliably upload your backup files to our secure cloud datacenter. If you are on a shared server, your hosting provider should have already configured libcurl for you; if not, contact their technical support and ask them to do so.
If you are on a VPS or dedicated server, please refer to ourFAQ on how to install libcurl on your system.
6Scan only transfers your backups in an encrypted form to prevent interception of your data in transit. To do so, we require the installed version of libcurl to support SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Please contact your hosting provider's technical support to help you resolve this issue.
Your hosting environment prevents 6Scan from accessing the mysqldump command, required to make database backups reliably. If all other prerequisities are OK, it may mean that mysqldump is not available on your server. Please contact your hosting provider's technical support to help you resolve this issue.
passthru() execution is disabled
6Scan requires the passthru() function to be enabled, to allow it to run commands that create and upload the backup files.
If you are running on a shared hosting platform, you may be able to change the passthru() setting from your hosting control panel (e.g. cPanel). Your hosting provider should be able to provide help in doing this if you cannot find the setting.
If you are familiar with php.ini, PHP's configuration file, and have access to it, you can correct the problem by finding the "disable_functions" line and removing passthru from the list of disabled functions.
For example, if your current disable_functions line is as follows:
disable_functions=exec,passthru,shell_exec
You should change it to:
disable_functions=exec,shell_exec