euroblaze | OXID e-Commerce User Blog

To prepare for that day of  disaster when your server crashes and your web-shop gets erased from the face of the Internet, we are happy to be giving away a free script for taking database dumps in an automated fashion (using cron) of your OXID e-Shop databases.

The script is written in Python, and has been tested to run on any LINUX machine supporting the language.

The code can be downloaded from code.google.com.

USAGE

shell$: eb_takedbdump.py -e <env> -s <shoproot>

Where

<env> = Any environment label to signify the environment where the shop is running.  Typically you’d set prod, dev, staging, vm and such values.  This value is then appended to the filename of the dump that is produced.

<shoproot> = the root folder where the core/ shop files reside (along with config.inc.php, .htaccess etc)

Working

Once the script runs successfully, you can expect 2 things:

1. A database dump file with the name dbname_env.sql (See Usage above for <env>).  dbname is the shop’s database name from config.inc.php
2. A log file called eb_takedbdump.log in <shoproot>/log/

You will have to make sure to set the permissions on database/ and log/ directories appropriately in case the script is being as a different user than the one owning the shop-directories.

REQUEST to Users

If you use the script, we would be thankful if you can mention (by email or comment below) in which server-environment and hoster you are successfully (or unsuccessfully) running this script.

We’ve got it to run on below environments until now:

1. Linux server000-han 2.6.99.8intel #1 SMP Sun Oct 30 22:38:04 CET 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux (Profihost hosting account)
2. Linux xxx 2.6.26-2-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Jun 13 16:29:33 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux (dedicated Debian 5.0.9 Server)
3. OXID Virtual Machine 2.0

Next Steps

As todos for the next version we are collecting the following list:

1. Support mentioning log-level as a CLI input parameter
2. Support a CLI parameter for rsync-ing the dump-file with an rsync-server
3. zip or gz the dump so that it’s more transportable (ex. to a back-up server by rsync et al)

Since the OXID VM is a good PHP developer tool, it would be great to have the xdebug enabled by default.  Until XDebug starts to comes pre-installed on the OXID VM, it can be installed on the VM’s in use, using:

apt-get install php5-dev

In your /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini, please insert either of these lines to load the xdebug.so shared object.

root@oxidvm:# find / -name 'xdebug.so' /usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so

zend_extension_ts=/usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so (for threaded use  of PHP) or
zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so (non threaded use)

xdebug for OXID Virtual Machine

The newest OXID CE 4.5.2 has been updated on the OXID Virtual Machine 2.0 Repository.  You can update this on your VM using the “VM/Available OXID Versions Update” menu point on the Main Menu.

Here are the 3 steps involved with updating your VM.

If you should have any questions regarding the VM, you may post them on the mailing list, or drop a comment here below.

Python-scripters can have a lot of fun with the OXID Virtual Machine 2.0 since it comes pre-installed with the Python Interpreter.

Infact the Management Console for this VM has been written in Python, source code of which can be viewed on our public SVN.

We are all excited about releasing the OXID VM 2.0 in the next days, the successor to the existing VM.  We’ve added several new features to the VM 2.0, including a management-console for quick access to day to day functions that OXID-programmers use.  At the same time, we’ve moved to VirtualBox, from it’s previous incarnation on VMWare.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be blogging about individual features, so please watch this space for new stuff.  You can also follow us on Twitter with hashtag #OXID_VM.

System

This Virtual Machine is based on:

• Debian GNU/LINUX 6.0.2 (Squeeze)
• Kernel 2.6.32-5-686

Minimum Recommended Hardware

• Single or Dual Core processors of up to 4.x GHz
• 4 GB RAM
• 20 GB Disk (VM performs faster on SSD)

Download

The OXID VM 2.0 is available for download over HTTP.  Filesize 874 MB (courtesy of the cloud service Dropbox).

This version of the OXID Virtual Machine comes with it’s own Management Console.  The source-code for the MC can be viewed on our public SVN.

Virtual Machine Player – VirtualBox

Here’s where you can get the VirtualBox Player for running this virtual-machine in Windows, OS X, Linux and Solaris host-operating-systems.

Discuss

There are surely bugs and features-wishes which we might have overlooked.  We would love to have you participate in the development of this VM.  Please join us at the OXID e-Shop Virtual Machine mailing list and send us tons of feedback!