How to backup your WordPress site for free without any plugins.
Requirements:
SSH access to your server/provider
Step 1 – Set things up
Login to your server and cd into your docroot.
Check to see it WP-CLI is installed
wp cli version
WP-CLI 0.24.1
If the version doesn’t show, Install WP-CLI
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
Make the file executable
hmod +x wp-cli.phar
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
Step 2 – Backup your database
Backup the database
wp db export ~/backup.sql
If that doesn’t work, try
sudo -u www-data -i wp db export ~/backup.sql
If it STILL doesn’t work, you can run it as sudo (not recommended)
sudo wp db export ~/backup.sql --allow-root
Step 3 – Backup and compress your website’s files
tar -vczf ~/backup.gz .
Or if you prefer ZIP
zip -r ~/backup.zip *
