Wiktel Backup Restoration Instructions

We recommend testing these instructions when you setup your backup, and periodically thereafter. That way, you can ensure that all of your important data is being protected, before you have a disaster.

There are two ways to view and restore your files:

HTTP

To view your files in a web browser, simply visit "https://backup.wiktel.com/YOUR_ACCOUNT". For example, if your backup account name (if in doubt, it's probably the same as your username for other Wiktel services) is "bob", you would visit https://backup.wiktel.com/bob in your web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.). Before the page loads, you'll be prompted for your username and password. Enter them, and you'll be able to see listings of you files. Simply click on a file to view it, or right-click on it to have the option to download and save it.

FTP

You can use any standard FTP client to connect to backup.wiktel.com. You'll need to provide your backup account's username and password. From there, you can download files or entire directories.

Snapshots & The Current Backup

When you login, you'll see two directories. The first, "current" holds the active copy of everything. This will contain data from the latest backup run. If a backup run is in progress, the data might be in an intermediate state (some files already updated, some not updated yet).

The other directory, "snapshots", contains unchanging snapshots of the data just after each backup session. They are organized into folders by date and time of the backup. This is useful if, for example, a file is deleted or corrupted and you don't notice for a few days. The snapshots are expired (deleted) after 30 days. (The current directory never expires.) Please contact us if you'd like your data retained longer.

In both directories, the data is first grouped by backup name (which corresponds to a specific computer). For example, if you had two computers, "apple" and "orange", you might see this directory layout:

current
    apple
        ... apple's files from the latest backup...
    orange
        ... orange's files from the latest backup ...
snapshots
    apple
        2006-10-25-123752
            ... apple's files from October 25, 2006 at 12:37:52 pm ...
        ... more snapshots ...
    orange
        2006-10-26-011234
            ... orange's files from October 26, 2006 at 1:12:34 am ...
        ... more snapshots ...

Because snapshots are made for each backup, it's easy to tell if the system is still making backups. You should also check the contents periodically to make sure that newly created and modified files are being properly synced to the backup server.

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