Yesterday, we told some users that we had successfully completed their first backup. That was a mistake. The email was sent out while we were still processing the backups, and a few hours before they could actually access them in the VaultPress dashboard.

Some users who have been with us for a while also received these emails. Naturally, it’s confusing to hear that we recently completed your first backup, when we’ve been making backups all along. The email was a mistake, and the backups are safe and sound.

We’re sorry for the confusion we caused, and will do our best to send emails to you with the same care we take in making the backups themselves. As always, please feel free to drop us a line if there’s anything we can help with.

Today we’re happy to announce a migration plan that provides Code Garage users with the protection they’re used to — while letting us improve security and backup services for everyone by focusing our resources on VaultPress. Through July 1, all Code Garage customers are invited to migrate to VaultPress.  To sweeten the deal, your first two months are on us — you won’t see a charge from Code Garage or VaultPress for two months after the migration.  After those 2 months, your Code Garage bill will remain  unchanged – you’ll keep paying what you’ve been paying as a Code Garage customer.

If you’re not interested in migrating, we’ll maintain your service at Code Garage through July 1, and give you your last month free.

Code Garage customers who decide to give VaultPress a try will get a VaultPress Lite plan with the addition of daily security scans. As a VaultPress customer, you’ll also have access to standard VaultPress services like automated restores, restore to alternate site, and the fantastic VaultPress support staff. To make sure nothing falls through the cracks, you’ll have access your original Code Garage backup snapshots for 30 days after migrating.

Best of all, the migration process is simple.  We’ve put together an automated migration tool to simplify the move from Code Garage to VaultPress:

To start the migration process, just head over to your Code Garage dashboard, where you’ll find instructions on how to proceed.

We’ve given this a lot of thought over the past few months, and I’m confident that this move will give current Code Garage customers — who I’ve grown quite attached to over the past 2 years — with the best possible service and technology moving forward.

For a little more info on how we got to this point, I’ve also published a post on CodeGarage.com — you can have a look here.

If you have any questions about how this will work, please contact us.

The VaultPress Lite plan provides all the fundamentals you need to keep your awesome content safe and sound:

• Daily backups that happen automatically, so you can focus on creating, not logistics.
• Automated site restores, so you can restore your entire site with a single click.
• Thirty days of saved backups, so you can go back in time to restore the last clean version of your site.

As with our other VaultPress plans, backups include your WordPress database tables, plugins, themes, and uploads.  You’ll also have access to our support staff — we call ‘em Happiness Engineers — should you need one-on-one assistance.

By including just the critical pieces of a good backup plan, we’re able to keep the monthly cost low and make VaultPress more widely available.  For those looking for continuous  backups of their data, or security scanning, check out our Basic and Premium plans

We hope that you’ll never need to use your VaultPress backups, but are glad we can make them available for bloggers and site owners at all levels. You can signup for any of our plans ( Lite, Basic, and Premium ) at http://vaultpress.com/plans/.  If you have any questions please contact us and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Sadly, there are a lot of WordPress users who miss out on this extra security because they haven’t configured it for their site.

That’s why I’m happy to announce that from today, VaultPress will help you out by detecting sites that haven’t set up any keys or salts. It’ll offer to fix the problem for you too, by generating and inserting long and secure randomized values.

Be warned that when your keys and salts are reconfigured, any logged in users at your site will be logged out, and will have to log in again. After that, everything should  work as it did before the update — except with stronger security!

The VaultPress Security Report

While we don’t recommend it, you’ve always been able to ignore a security threat. Now you can view these ignored security threats. Just click on the Ignored Threats button, and you’ll see a list of any ignored notices.

Viewing ignored security notices.

You can see all the details of the ignored security threat, including the names and locations of the affected files. You can even Un-Ignore a threat, moving it back to your active security threats.

VaultPress helps secure your site from known and potential security threats with daily file scans and real-time backup of your WordPress site. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect and secure your content, themes, plugins, settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or sign up to protect your site.

You’ll see yourself listed as the owner. To change the owner, click on the blue “Change Owner” link. This will show a list of all the site’s current users, along with a field to add a new user:

Choose one of the existing users, or type in a WordPress.com email address, and click the “Change Owner” button. Any billing information on file will be erased, and the new owner will be sent an email and asked to enter a new credit card. Once ownership has been changed, you’ll still have access to the site’s VaultPress dashboard, but not to any billing or plan details.

VaultPress makes it easy for you and your clients to backup and secure any WordPress-powered site. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, themes, plugins, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or sign up to protect your site.

You’ve always been able to restore your VaultPress backups to the same server. But starting today, all VaultPress subscribers can automatically restore a backup to a new site altogether!

Why would I want to do this?

• Maybe you’ve always wanted to restore a backup to a new server, or a subdirectory on your current server, for troubleshooting or development purposes. Well, now you can restore your VaultPress backups to a test site!
• Or perhaps you’re getting ready to move to a new host. Now you can easily copy your current site to a new host!

What’s required to make this work?

You only need a few basic things to get started. You’ll need:

• A fresh WordPress installation on a new host, or in a subdirectory on your existing host
• A publicly accessible URL — “localhost” won’t work
• Your FTP, SFTP, or SSH credentials for the host where the new WordPress installation lives
• The filesystem path to the new WordPress installation

Okay, I’m ready! How do I use this thing?

You can restore your backup to a new site in just a few steps:

1. Log into your VaultPress Dashboard
2. Click on “Backups” in the sidebar
3. Choose a backup, and click the “Restore” button: 
4. Click on the “Change Site” button: 
5. Fill out the form, including your site’s new URL, FTP credentials, and the path to your new WordPress installation: 
6. Click the “Save Alternate Site” button
7. Click the “Restore” button: 

You can watch the progress bars if you’d like, or you can close this page. The restore will run in the background, and your site will be restored in no time!

Have any questions?

If you have any questions about restoring your backup to a new site, or just want to say howdy, drop us a line!

Just type in the new user’s email address, hit enter, and they’ll be added to your VaultPress subscription. The VaultPress Dashboard requires a WordPress.com account, so those people you want to add will need to create a new account, if they don’t already have one. Anyone can create a WordPress.com account in minutes — and it’s completely free.

The people you add to your VaultPress Dashboard will be able to view, download, and restore your backups, as well as view and manage your security notices (for Premium subscribers). Only the owner of the VaultPress subscription can add or remove other users, as well as manage the billing information for the subscription.

VaultPress makes it easy for your team to react to the unexpected. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, themes, plugins, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or sign up to protect your site.

For the most common threats, a blue “fixer” button makes it easy to clean the affected files and secure your site. For threats without a “fixer” button, you can review the suspicious code. If you’re unsure about a threat, just ask a Safekeeper and get one-on-one support from our expert team of WordPress developers.

VaultPress Security gives you the information you need to react to threats, and access to Safekeeper support for help. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, themes, plugins, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or sign up to protect your site.

In the VaultPress dashboard, you’ve always been able to make it easier for VaultPress to connect to your site. You can provide us with these credentials on your current sites by logging into the VaultPress Dashboard and clicking “Settings” on the site you’d like to provide them for.

We’ve recently made this much easier to do when you sign up or add a new site by asking for the credentials before you install the plugin. Providing us with the credentials right away enables VaultPress to immediately run as efficiently as it can and start protecting your site right away.

This is just one step towards making it easier to get up and running quickly with VaultPress. Learn more about how VaultPress can protect your content, theme, plugin, and site settings and customizations. Contact us with questions, or sign up to protect your site.