Some of these may be dumb questions, but I was hoping for a step by step guide to backing up and restoring both Gmail and Gforum. If I do a SQL Dump of Gmail using MySQL Manager, do I leave all the settings left on default? There are 'select tables', 'create table statements' and 'insert statements' options.

How exactly do I perform a restore using this backup? If I reinstall Gmail how do I get the database back up and running?

I've made a tar of the data directory also. Am I right in thinking this just contains messages, templates etc, and not critical data such as user demographics? (It's just that it's easier to backup the database, than to do the lot every time).

Can the SQL Dump be run as a cronjob? If so what's the format or what alternative means are there for backing up the database other than going manually through MySQL Manager?

Hope someone can help.

Jason