Creating Backups with the Backup Wizard in cPanel

cPanel - Files - Backup Wizard

Back Up

You can choose to create a full backup file or a partial backup file.

You will not be able to use the "full backup file" to restore your files through the cPanel feature.
You need to compress the backup file prior to restoration.
After decompressing the backup file, you can upload and restore individual sections of your site that the full backup file contains.
The backup process for an account near or over its quota may fail because the system cannot write necessary files, such as a database lock file.

Creating a full Backup

To create a full backup:

I) From the main Backup Wizard interface, click Back Up. The Full or Partial Backup section of the interface will appear.

• 1) Click Full Backup. The Download section of the interface will appear.
• 2) Select one of the following destinations from the Backup Destination menu:

• • Home Directory - Select this setting to save the backup file on the server. The server saves the file in the home/username directory
• • Remote FTP Server - Select this setting to use FTP to store the backup file on a remote server
• • Remote FTP Server (passive mode transfer) - Select this setting to use passive FTP to store the backup file on a remote server
• • Secure Copy (SCP) - Select this setting to use SCP to store the backup file on a remote server

Important: Only advanced users should select the Remote FTP Server, Remote FTP Server (passive mode transfer), or SFTP destination settings.

Perform one of the following actions to configure notifications for this backup file:

• • To receive a notification when the backup process finishes, enter your email address in the Email Address text box
• • To disable notifications, select the "Do not send email notification" of backup completion checkbox

If you selected the Remote FTP Server, Remote FTP Server - passive mode transfer, or Secure Copy - SCP destinations, enter the remote destination’s information in the available text boxes.

Click Generate Backup. A confirmation message will appear. Click Go Back to return to the Download section of the interface.

If you selected the Home Directory setting in step 3, click the filename in the Download section of the interface to download the backup file.
The backup file is in backup-MM-DD-YYYY format, where MM is the month, DD is the date, and YYYY is the four-digit year.
The system stores full backup files as tarballs that use the .tar.gz file extension.

Create a partial backup

To back up a portion of your site, perform the following steps:

• From the main Backup Wizard interface, click Back Up. The Full or Partial Backup section of the interface will appear.
• Select which portion of your website that you wish to back up. The Download section of the interface will appear.
• Click the desired backup file to download it. This will download the backup file as a .gz file.

• • Home Directory - *.tar.gz
• • Email Forwarders & Filters — *.net, *.com
• • MySQL Databases — *.sql

Restore

To restore a portion of your site from an existing backup, perform the following steps:

• Click Restore. The Select Restore Type section of the interface will appear.
• Select which portion of your website that you wish to restore. The Restore section of the interface will appear.
• Click Choose File and select the desired backup file.
• Click Upload to begin the restoration process.

Backup File Contents

When you back up your /home directory, the backup file includes the following files:

All the files that you own.
Files that you do not own, but can access.

Note: Backup files do not include files from your /home directory that you do not own and cannot access.

To exclude certain files and Directories from a backup file, place a configuration file in your home directory. For more information, read our How to Exclude Files From Backups documentation.