WHM Backup feature

[canuck]

I enabled the backup option in WHM and was wondering how much disk space resources this may cost me ?

This does full client backups.

Is anyone else using this and/or how do you manage your backups.

Being new at this, I'm looking for a safe solution for my clients yet don't want to waste too much disk space if it's a full blown backup.

Or do I need to bother setting this up since daily backup are done by PowerVPS via the Power Panel.

Do the daily backups get erased every week automatically by the WHM backup utility ?

:)

[smoore]

I was just looking into this myself yesterday, have some of the same questions. I setup weekly backups with no monthly retention, but not sure if that will accumulate multiple ones. Was going to watch the backup directory and see what accumulates.

One thing I'd like to do is an automated backup just of certain MySQL databases, those are the only things on my site that change very often. Haven't looked into what yet.

They have some info up at https://www.powervps.com/support/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=84 if you haven't seen it

[canuck]

I saw that info also.

I just checked the daily backups for the second day running and only one copy is preserved as far as I can see.

[Hostultrix]

Yeah I'm curious about this, too. I rsync backups to a remote backup location also, but, still it might be good to keep local ones, for say a client's account needs restored or something.

[Robert]

I enabled the backup option in WHM and was wondering how much disk space resources this may cost me ? This depends on how many backups you choose to do. (Daily, weekly, and/or monthly) It also depends on how big each account is. If I remember correctly, you can select only certain accounts to backup as well. In my personal observations, if you choose to do regular backup (not incrimental), it will use about 60-75% of the amount of space being used by the account currently (this varies greatly on type of data being backed up and compressed). If you do incrimental backups, it's generally a 1-1 ratio, plus a little more for settings (like mysql privs, shadow passwords hashes, etc).

This does full client backups.

Is anyone else using this and/or how do you manage your backups.Most folks who want to be able to quickly and easily restore entire client accounts generally go with this option. I know a few folks who have an extra webmin server that handles nothing but backups. They have the backup setup to send the files over via FTP. I've also seen folks who just once a week long in to the client's CPanel and generate/download a full backup. LOL.

If you have the disk space, I would just have it backup to a /backup folder on the VPS.

Being new at this, I'm looking for a safe solution for my clients yet don't want to waste too much disk space if it's a full blown backup.

Or do I need to bother setting this up since daily backup are done by PowerVPS via the Power Panel.We do backups on a regular basis of your ENTIRE VPS. These are essentially snapshots. We can grab individual files and directories from these backups, but we can't reconstruct entire accounts (like e-mail accounts, passwords, ftp logins, etc). If something happens and you need a folder, file, or a database from our backups, you're welcome to e-mail support and we'll grab it for you and put it in your /tmp folder for you or something.

If you want the extra piece of mind for restoring entire accounts though, I'd say enable the backups. The only thing it will cost you is disk space. If you notice too much used, you can disable it or delete the files. :)

Do the daily backups get erased every week automatically by the WHM backup utility ? They're phased out by CPanel. You'll have a main folder called cpbackup, then below it will be upto 3 more folders (daily, weekly, monthly) below it depending on which types of backups you enable. Under daily will be the single daily backup for each account. Under weekly will be the weekly backup, and the same for monthly. So each account could be duplicated as many as 3 times depending on how you configure your backup settings.

Hope this helps answer your questions. :)

[canuck]

Thanks for the detailed info Robert. This will be usefull to others for sure.

[canuck]

What is the best (safest) setting to use with the "Sql Databases (at least per accounts is needed to use the restore feature)" option:

- Per Accounts Only
- Per Accounts and Entire Mysql Dir
- Mysql Dir Only

Basically need to know what advantage is there in selected the second option over the first.

Also do I need to fill out this field if I'm sending the backups to a remote FTP location? "Backup Destination (this should be a dir/nfs/coda mount with at least twice the space of all your /home* partitions. Setting this to /home is a VERY BAD IDEA.): "

Is passive mode the way to go for remote FTP ?

AFter saving changes i get this message: "Only accounts can be backed up over ftp. The configuration file backup option has been turned off.
Backup Configuration Saved!" Is this normal ?

[Robert]

What is the best (safest) setting to use with the "Sql Databases (at least per accounts is needed to use the restore feature)" option:Go with Per Accounts and Entire mySQL Dir. What the first does is create a copy of the raw mysql folder with the backup. If the sql export does not work, it can just move the raw files back.

Also do I need to fill out this field if I'm sending the backups to a remote FTP location? "Backup Destination (this should be a dir/nfs/coda mount with at least twice the space of all your /home* partitions. Setting this to /home is a VERY BAD IDEA.): "Backup destination is not needed for remote backups.

Is passive mode the way to go for remote FTP ?If the server you're backing up onto has a firewall, enable passive mode.

AFter saving changes i get this message: "Only accounts can be backed up over ftp. The configuration file backup option has been turned off.
Backup Configuration Saved!" Is this normal ?This is normal in that the configuration files such as httpd.conf, resolv.conf, etc will not be backed up to a remote server. If you were doing local backups, then it would work. :)

[canuck]

Thanks Rob.

[vps-vince]

We do backups on a regular basis of your ENTIRE VPS. These are essentially snapshots. We can grab individual files and directories from these backups, but we can't reconstruct entire accounts (like e-mail accounts, passwords, ftp logins, etc). If something happens and you need a folder, file, or a database from our backups, you're welcome to e-mail support and we'll grab it for you and put it in your /tmp folder for you or something.

If you want the extra piece of mind for restoring entire accounts though, I'd say enable the backups.

Hi Robert,
I don't get it. :o
Why can't you restore an entire account if you have the entire VPS backed-up?
Sorry but seems strange to me that a full VPS back-up cannot restore an entire account.

Thanks,

- V

[charles]

Vince, an account backup also has all the information to recreate an account in its entirety, which involved modifications to many files. So if you accidentally deleted an account say, you couldn't restore that account with our backups 2 days later because those files have been changed. Take /etc/passwd for example. If you added some new users inbetween, the bext we could do is restore the old /etc/passwd and the new accoutns would be lost/broken.

As Rob said, if you can identofy specific files, we can get them for you from backups, but it will be your responsiblity to either replace the existing ones or integrate the changes back in. It works fine for things like getting their websites and databses back though.

hth
charles

[jhobbs]

We do backups on a regular basis of your ENTIRE VPS. These are essentially snapshots. We can grab individual files and directories from these backups, but we can't reconstruct entire accounts (like e-mail accounts, passwords, ftp logins, etc). If something happens and you need a folder, file, or a database from our backups, you're welcome to e-mail support and we'll grab it for you and put it in your /tmp folder for you or something.

If you want the extra piece of mind for restoring entire accounts though, I'd say enable the backups. The only thing it will cost you is disk space. If you notice too much used, you can disable it or delete the files. :)

My understanding is, PowerVPS backs up the entire VPS about every 24 hours, and can restore the entire VPS or individual files as required, upon request.

When I'm upgrading a forum, for example, I'd like to be able to backup the appropriate /home/ folder, plus the appropriate MySQL file. I'd prefer to be able to accomplish this on my own. And of course, I'd like to be able to restore these files. I get real brave with modifications, after I've tested backup and restore capabilities :p .

I made a copy of /home/forumsite/ using SSH, but I've forgotten how. And it's pretty easy to backup and restore the database. I'd appreciate any hints & tips about how to do this backup/restore without bothering Support.

[charles]

To back it up, do

tar czf /root/forumsite.tgz /home/forumsite

To restore

cd /
tar xzf /root/forumsite.tgz

You will need to backup the database too

/usr/bin/mysqldump -a --add-drop-table -F -l -v -u root -p `cat /root/.my.cnf` DATABASENAME 2>/dev/null | gzip - > /root/forumsite.sql.gz

To restore this,

gunzip /root/forumsite.sql.gz
mysql -u root -p `cat /root/.my.cnf` DATABASENAME < /root/forumsite.sql

hth
charles

[jhobbs]

You will need to backup the database too

/usr/bin/mysqldump -a --add-drop-table -F -l -v -u root -p `cat /root/.my.cnf` DATABASENAME 2>/dev/null | gzip - > /root/forumsite.sql.gz

hth
charlesThanks!

Something is wrong with my database backup string:
/usr/bin/mysqldump -a --add-drop-table -F -l -v -u root -p `cat /root/.my.cnf` forumsite_vbull 2>/dev/null | gzip - > /root/forumsite_vbull.sql.gz

It asks for the password, then produces a 20 byte result. Gzip compression isn't that good, so I'm missing something. What?

[charles]

I made some assumptions there. Try without the "-p `cat /root/.my.cnf`" or replace -p "`cat /root/.my.cnf`" with "-pYOURPASSWORDHERE"

hth
charles

[ricardo]

Hi, I already install whm backup to another server (not in powervps).

I have 3 folders each one with his copy of all the accounts of my sites:
... Daily
... Weekly
... Monthly

Can I keep a backup of each day of the last week ?
What I want are these folders:
... Daily
........ Monday
........ Thuesday
........ Wednesday
........ xxxxxxx
........ Sunday
... Weekly
... Monthly