Hosting: Consider leaving access disabled until the first full backup is complete.

[kwight]

@senff mentioned in testing that dropping tables immediately after signup means no Rewind backup available from which to restore. Let's consider disabling the SFTP and PMA UI until a full Rewind backup exists for new sites.

[automattic-ian]

@kwight this sounds like an excellent idea. If we were to allow users to trigger a backup this would also reduce support volume if we're disabling access until a backup exists.

[apeatling]

I have reservations about this one.

• New sites have minimal changes, data loss is reduced in the event of breakage
• Disabling access until a backup is done will be incredibly frustrating for advanced users that know what they are doing (the vast majority of usage I would expect)

How long would a backup of a new site take if we trigger it as soon as the site is created in signup? In any case, I think this should be punted until:

1. We know how much of a problem this is for support
2. We have the ability to trigger a manual backup.

[apeatling]

/cc @gwwar

[automattic-ian]

@apeatling

How long would a backup of a new site take if we trigger it as soon as the site is created in signup?

The backup process takes a few minutes generally speaking, depending on how much content exists that needs to be backed up.

Potentially waiting a few minutes to get access due to a backup is worth it instead of the guaranteed anger and frustration over having a broken site.

In theory if we kick a backup off as part of site creation then our users won't have to wait.

If our users are technical enough to want and/or need access to the database and SFTP they should also be technical enough to understand the importance of having a functional backup.

We also have the precedent of displaying a please wait dialogue when a new domain is registered as DNS settings can take time.

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