Vault - Site migration

Vault allows you to make a full backup of the site, push it to the cloud and then restore on any Moodle site.

Features:

Vault will export and import database structure, schema modifications, tables content and sequences.
Vault can restore not only into a different DB version but also into a different DB type (i.e. from mysql to postgres or vice versa);
Vault plugin does not need to have access to mysqldump or pgdump, the database will be exported using Moodle DML.
Vault will export and import all files, regardless of the file system (local disk, S3, etc), the file system on the restored site can be different from the backup site;
Vault will export and import additional folders in the dataroot.
After restore Vault will perform some necessary post-restore actions, for example, purge caches, kill all sessions, optionally reset site identifier, optionally uninstall missing plugins etc.
Vault does not back up or restore Moodle code or add-on plugins code.
Vault does not back up or restore its own tables.
Other plugins can be excluded during backup/restore (with some limitations).
All data transferred to or from tool_vault is encrypted during transit using SSL/TLS.
In some plans you may choose to set a passphrase during backup which will be used to encrypt data stored at rest in the cloud. Vault API never has access to your passphrase, it is only used to sign the requests to Amazon S3.

Requirements:

The site where you restore must have Moodle installed, it can be a fresh installation;
Plugin tool_vault must be installed on both sites - where you back up and where you restore;
The site where you are restoring to must have the same or higher Moodle version than the backed up site;
Supported databases - postgres, mysql and mariadb. Other database types are not yet supported;
There are some restrictions on database modifications, see below;
You need to have enough space in your temp folder on the backed up site and enough space to store downloaded files on the site where you plan to restore.

Site backup with Vault

Login as site administrator and navigate to Site administration > Server > Vault - Site migration
Before backup, Vault performs a number of pre-checks. They can also be executed independently. The results are displayed on the 'Site backup' page.
Backup can be performed only when all pre-checks are successful, which means you have enough disk space, and do not have (or excluded) incompatible database schema modifications. The pre-checks will run again in the beginning of the backup process.
If you want to make changes to what needs to be backed up, you can do it in the "Settings" section.
When everything is ready, open the "Site backup" section, register with the LMSVault cloud (or enter existing API key) and schedule a backup.
Backup will be performed during the next cron run. Every step is logged and you can monitor the process on the backup page.

Protecting your backup site from accidental restores

The ability to restore is disabled by default when tool_vault is installed. Restores are not possible if you did not register an account, did not enter an API key, or your API key does not allow restores.

In order to completely prevent restores to the site, add the following lines to your config.php:

$CFG->forced_plugin_settings = $CFG->forced_plugin_settings ?? [];
$CFG->forced_plugin_settings['tool_vault'] = ['allowrestore' => 0];

Site restore with Vault

Login as site administrator and navigate to Site administration > Server > Vault - Site migration
Go to the "Settings" section and check enable restores on this site.
Enter your API key that you received during registration when you performed the backup.
In the "Site restore" section you will see the list of all backups that are available for you to restore. This list is cached and you can refresh it at any moment to look for new backups.
Choose the backup you want to restore, execute pre-checks for it to make sure that you have enough disk space and if you need to adjust the restore settings.
Schedule the restore. You will be provided with a link to the restore progress page that can be accessed without authentication. Remember that during restore everything is erased from the database and nobody will be able to login.
Remember to check the restore log since it may not be possible to send a notification to the person who initiated restore after the restore process has finished because the site configuration will be overridden with the config of the backed up site.
After restore has completed, login with the username and password of a user from the backed up site (remember that the users table in the database was replaced).
If your site version is higher than the version of the restored site or you have plugins that were not present on the restored site, you will be prompted to run the upgrade process.
If the backed up site had plugins that are not present on the restored site, all database tables, settings, and files of these plugins will be restored and Moodle will report them as "Missing from disk". You will need to install these plugins code yourself.

Backup and restore of site configuration

As part of backing up the database, Vault backs up the tables 'config' and 'config_plugins'.
Vault will also backup the config values that are specified as $CFG->settingname="value"; or in $CFG->forced_plugin_settings and restore them as if they were set in the database. However Vault will only do this for the settings that have controls in Site administration tree.
Settings such as $CFG->tempdir or $CFG->session_handler_class or $CFG->alternative_file_system_class will not be backed up. You can see the full list of the config settings that will or will not be backed up in the "Config overrides" pre-check on the backed up site.
On the restored site if there is anything set in config.php it will take precedence over the restored config settings values.
Vault does not backup or restore cache, localcache, or muc directories in the dataroot.

Backup and restore of database modifications

As part of the "Database modifications" pre-check Vault analyses the actual database and compares it with the schema definitions in install.xml files in Moodle core, standard and add-on plugins.
There are the following types of possible database modifications: extra tables, missing tables, extra indexes, missing indexes, extra table fields, missing table fields, modified table fields.
Note that not all field modifications can be detected, for example, changing the length or precision of the int/double/float fields.
Some database modifications are not supported in the Moodle DML, for example, indexes on text fields, varchar fields with length over 1333. If you have such modifications, the pre-check will fail and Vault will not be able to perform backup.
In the "Settings" section you can specify that some modifications should be excluded. You can re-run the pre-check after you modified the settings to see if it passes.

CLI access

The plugin contains three CLI scripts that can be used to perform backup, restore, or list remote backups. When using CLI commands there is no need to run cron.

You can completely prevent access to the web interface and use the plugin from CLI only by changing the settings or adding the following to config.php:

$CFG->forced_plugin_settings = $CFG->forced_plugin_settings ?? [];
$CFG->forced_plugin_settings['tool_vault'] = ['clionly' => 1];

Installation of the plugin tool_vault

Installing via uploaded ZIP file

Log in to your Moodle site as an admin and go to Site administration > Plugins > Install plugins.
Upload the ZIP file with the plugin code. You should only be prompted to add extra details if your plugin type is not automatically detected.
Check the plugin validation report and finish the installation.

Installing manually

The plugin can be also installed by putting the contents of this directory to

{YOUR/MOODLE/ROOT}/admin/tool/vault

Afterwards, log in to your Moodle site as an admin and go to Site administration > Notifications to complete the installation.

Alternatively, you can run

$ php admin/cli/upgrade.php

to complete the installation from the command line.

lmscloud-io/moodle-tool_vault