Backups & Restoration

Control Spot features a high-performance, backup engine designed to handle large websites and databases without exhausting server resources. You can automate your backups, sync them to the cloud, and restore them using our automated dashboard or a standalone recovery kit.

Control Spot uses an inheritance model to simplify management across dozens of websites. Settings can be configured at two levels:

1. Global Backup Settings
   • Located in the main Settings panel.
   • Defines the default schedule, storage destination, and exclusions for all websites.
2. Website Overrides
   • Individually configured within each website’s backup tab.
   • Allows you to use different cloud providers or schedules for specific client sites.

Keep your data safe with automated cycles. The engine runs in the background and processes tasks in small chunks to prevent PHP timeouts.

1. Flexible Periods
   • Daily: Ideal for high-traffic sites.
   • Weekly / Bi-Weekly: Balanced protection.
   • Monthly: Suitable for static or low-update sites.
2. Retention Policies
   • Configure how many days to keep backups before they are automatically purged to save space.

Control Spot supports multiple local and remote storage providers:

1. Local Server: Backups are stored on your web server disk.
2. Control Spot Cloud (S3): Managed AWS S3 storage provided by us for zero-configuration backups.
3. External Cloud: Amazon S3 (and S3-compatible), Dropbox, and Google Drive.
4. Direct Transfer: Remote FTP and SFTP storage support.

To reduce backup size and improve speed, you can exclude non-essential data using our extensible settings:

1. Exclusion Presets
   • Quickly skip WordPress cache folders, log files, and temporary system files.
2. Custom Rules
   • Folder Paths: Exclude specific directories (e.g., /node_modules/).
   • File Patterns: Exclude files matching wildcards (e.g., *.zip or *.tmp).
   • Exact Files: Target specific files for exclusion from the TAR archive.

Restoration is available via the dashboard or the Standalone Recovery Kit. The standalone installer is environment-aware and handles the complexities of moving to a new server:

1. Cross-Server Portability
   • Discovers the new server’s physical path automatically.
   • Updates Database Credentials in wp-config.php.
   • Performs a full URL Search & Replace to migrate the site to a new domain.
   • Renames Table Prefixes to match the target environment.
2. Safety & Security
   • Suicide Guard: Prevents the engine from deleting the backup source data.
   • Identity Validation: The installer requires the folder to match the Backup ID.
   • JWT Handshake: Every backup has a unique secret key for internal authorization.