Manage Your WordPress Database

One of the problems with blogging on self-hosted platforms is maintenance. While the platforms are designed for non-technical users to operate, it is only the geeks who understand things like databases that work behind the scenes until something borks and brings the whole thing down.

When I set up a WordPress-based blog or website I usually install the Backup plugin. This emails the user a copy of the database once a week. That coupled with a good FTP download of the files means that at least it is possible to recover to a week old version, and with some swift copy and paste from the most recent RSS download maybe more.

There are other database aspects you might need though and that is where WP-DBManager supposedly comes in to play, but I have issues with it. First a description of what it does …

This plugin gives you a whole bunch of features that otherwise would be off limits, hidden away from the user in scary places like PHPMyAdmin, or the command line.

wp-dbmanager

Just like the other backup plugins, this will allow you to take a backup and email it. It also allows you to optimize and repair, and more dangerously empty or drop tables. While it does have a facility for running SQL queries, you can not run anything that returns a resultset which seems pretty daft.

Now my criticisms:

  1. It should allow routine scheduled backups and maybe optimizations - right now need two plugins when one could do both jobs
  2. As it is you would not hand it over, it is too dangerous - integrate with Role Manager to remove dangerous features
  3. SQL Queries is useless for end users - Make it so you can run queries and show results?

The repair feature could be a life saver, but as for the rest, while an excellent plugin, I think it could be a lot better.

Do you know an alternative database plugin for WordPress?

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Blogging

Comments

6 Responses to “Manage Your WordPress Database”

  1. Cigar Jack on July 24th, 2008 5:25 pm

    Two nights ago my WordPress DB was corrupted. WP-DBManager saved me. All I had to do was click Repair DB and everything worked again.

    I’m still working on a way to easily backup everything else. I’ve been playing with scripting command line ftp to do it.

  2. Phil Barron on July 24th, 2008 7:24 pm

    Prompted by your review, I finally got around to installing WP-DBManager today. It seems to work as advertised, and does indeed provide for scheduled backups (from the main menu: Database > DB Options, then Automatic Scheduling at the bottom of the page) and optimization. I even tried restoring from the backup (with breath held) and all went well.

    I do think that Empty/Drop Tables (and maybe Run SQL Query) should perhaps be buried in a sub-menu under an “Advanced” heading.

  3. Rick Galan on July 25th, 2008 9:00 am

    I don’t know of a db plugin, but I like to use SQLYog to manage the database. It’s a standalone application, but let’s you fully manipulate the database in a GUI environment, and do whatever you want with queries. Much more friendly than PHPMyAdmin.

  4. Nora Rubinoff on July 25th, 2008 5:45 pm

    An important and helpful post that I’m sharing with my colleagues! Some in the virtual assistant industry are newer to WordPress and its incredible power and flexibility. Backing up your site and content is always important. Thanks for sharing a few tools for accomplishing this task. My hosting company also offers a back up feature via the control panel, which I also take advantage of. You can never have too many backups!

  5. GaMerZ on July 25th, 2008 9:25 pm

    Hi, Thanks for the review and allow me to clarify some points.

    1. Schedule/routine backup and optimization of DB is already in.
    2. There is a capability called “manage_database” and this capability is assigned only to the role “administrator”
    3. This feature was suggested by one of my users quite sometime ago.

  6. Kim Woodbridge on August 7th, 2008 6:25 pm

    I use the backup plugin and you can set it to email you daily or even hourly. I just started using it so perhaps in an earlier version the backup was only weekly.

    There is still the problem, however, of backing up the rest of the files - templates, etc…

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