Now that we have completed our initial investigation of the best practice methods for maintaining and monitoring our new Drupal 6.13 site, it's a good idea to run a full backup of the site directory (all of our Drupal files and folders), and of the database. We did this in Chapter 1 before we completed our initial Drupal 5.x upgrade, but we're now going to look at this in more detail. Backups are essential to keep our site performing well over time. Eventually, you may run into an issue or glitch in your site or database, which will cause you to be forced to restore some of your Drupal core or module files and restore your Drupal database. You may never need to resort to a backup, but it's a requirement to have a backup in case you do need it because issues and errors in your site and database can come up unexpectedly.
The first method is to run a backup of all of your Drupal files and folders. One method of doing this is through SFTP. Connect...