Setting Up Server Backups In WHM

WARNING: IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DO NOT CONFIGURE LOCAL BACKUPS UNLESS YOU HAVE AT LEAST TWICE THE SPACE OF YOUR /home AVAILABLE ON YOUR SERVER.  Doing so can quickly cause your server to run out of diskspace.  in the case of FTP backups, it can cause extremely high bandwidth utilisation which can result in significant excess data charges, as almost the entire server is copied at each backup interval.  We recommend that you apply the Daily Backups Add-on ($15/m) which will snapshot the server and store the backups in a separate environment.  If you must utilise WHM backups, care should be taken with the scheduling to ensure you remain within your disk and data quotas.

Synopsis:
This guide contains instructions for setting up backups in WHM.  In this example, we will set the backup location as the local default.


Additional Information:

Options and descriptions

Backup Status
Enabled - Enable backups and restorations.
Disabled - Disable backups and restorations.
Restore Only - Disable backups and allow restorations.

Backup Interval - Select the interval at which you wish to run automatic backups. You may select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Selecting Daily will give you both monthly and weekly backups. Selecting Weekly will also run monthly backups.

Backup Retention - Select the backups you wish to retain.

Days to Run Backup - Select the days on which you wish to run backups.

Remount/Unmount Backup Drive - Select whether or not you wish to remount and unmount the specified backup drive while backups are running.
Note: Enabling this option requires a separate drive, coda, or network filesystem (NFS) drive.

Bail Out If Backup Drive Mount Fails - Select whether or not you wish to cancel the backup process if the backup drive fails to mount.

Incremental Backup - Select whether you wish to only back up what has changed.
Note: You cannot enable this option with FTP backups. This option does not use file compression.

Backup Accounts - Select whether or not you wish to back up accounts. (By default, only system files are contained within backups.)

Compress Account Backups - Select whether or not you wish to compress backup files.

Backup Configuration Files - Select whether or not you wish to back up configuration files. (Configuration files are not required to restore a backup.)
Backup SQL Databases
Per Account Only - Creates an individual database backup for each account.
Entire MySQL Directory - Creates a single backup for the entire MySQL directory.
Per Account and Entire MySQL Directory - Creates both individual backups for each account, and a single database backup that contains the entire MySQL directory.

Backup Access Logs - Select whether or not you wish to store access logs.

Use local DNS zone files rather than retrieving the latest zones updates from the cluster - Selecting Enabled will cause the pkgacct script to grab the local DNS zone file, rather than searching the cluster for the latest zone record. This may improve performance, but may result in outdated DNS information whenever an account is restored.

Backup Type
Standard - Selecting this option stores backup files locally or on a network file system.
Remote FTP (Accounts Only) - Selecting this option allows you to store backup files on a remote server.
EXPERIMENTAL: Use Hard Links for weekly and monthly backups to reduce disk usage and backup time - Select whether you wish to use hard links for weekly and monthly backups. You can read more about hard links.

EXPERIMENTAL: Enable use of optimized account backup tool - Enabling this setting instructs the backup utility to use /usr/local/cpanel/bin/pkgacct if it exists and is executable.

Remote FTP Host (Remote FTP Backup Only) - If you have opted to use Remote FTP backups, enter the remote FTP server's hostname in the corresponding text field.

FTP Backup User (Remote FTP Backup Only) - If you have opted to use Remote FTP backups, enter the FTP account's username in the corresponding text field.

FTP Backup Password (Remote FTP Backup Only) - If you have opted to use Remote FTP backups, enter the FTP account's password in the corresponding text field.

FTP Backup Directory - If you have opted to use Remote FTP backups, enter the directory in which backup files will be stored.

FTP Backup Passive Mode - If you have opted to use Remote FTP backups, enable this option if the remote server is behind a firewall, or if FTP backups fail.

Backup Destination - If you are using Standard backups, enter the directory in which you wish to store backups.

Select Specific Users - Click the Select button to select users whose accounts should be backed up automatically.

How-to Steps:

  1. Log in to WHM and browse here: Home » Backup » Backup Configuration.
  2. Change backup status to 'Enable'
  3. It is recommended that the 'Compressed' option is selected for local backups as this will signigficantly reduce the space they take up.
  4. Select the days you would like to run the backup, or 'Backup Daily' for every day, under 'Scheduling and retention.
  5. Scroll to 'Databases'.  The 'Per Account' option is selected by default and is the most appropriate option if you have the Daily backups Add-on.
  6. Under the 'Default backup directory' field, ensure /backups is entered.
  7. Click 'Save configuration'.

If you have further questions about options not covered in this article, please lodge a support ticket at https://www.entitydata.com.au/support/

 
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