Backing up Your Entire Account

There are many advantages to having a Full Cpanel Backup. This backup file will contain all the necessary information to completely restore your account on any Cpanel server. You can also extract only the website files and database dumps if you need it, it will contain any email stored on the server, and much more.

Backup to Your Home Directory

To perform a full Cpanel backup, follow these steps:

1. Login to your Cpanel account.
2. Click on Backups.
3. Toward the top, look for Full Backups.
4. Click on the link Generate/Download a Full Cpanel Backup
5. On the next screen, make sure the first drop-down menu says "Home Directory" (the other fields can be left alone).
6. Click on the button "Generate Backup".

The next screen will say "Full Backup In Progress".
Click on the "Go Back" screen to go back to the Generate Backup, and you'll see the name of the backup file, something like:

backup-5.24.2007_11-42-07_USERNAME.tar.gz (In Progress)

Once the backup is complete, the (In Progress) will disappear and the filename will be a clickable link to download the backup in your web browser.
The backup file is located in your home directory, so you can also download it via FTP/SFTP.

Don't forget to delete the file after you've downloaded it. It will take up unnecessary space on your account, and creating several large backups can cause you to go over your disk space quota.

Restoring a Full Backup

You cannot restore a full backup. You will need to submit a support ticket∞ requesting this backup file be restored.
Upload the file to your home directory, then tell the support staff where it is and what it is named. ASO Support staff will take care of everything from there.

Backup to a Remote FTP Server

You can also choose to backup to a remote server.
Follow steps 1-4 above (backing up to Home Directory), then select the drop-down menu for Home Directory and change it to another backup location.

Remote FTP Server - to backup to an FTP server
Remote FTP Server (Passive) - select this if you need to use Passive Mode
Secure Copy - This uses the SSH protocol and encrypts the data stream and copies using the SCP program.

Remote Server - enter the server hostname or IP address of the server you are sending the file to
Remote User - The username for your account on the remote server (you must have a valid user account on the server)
Remote Password - The password for the remote account

These two options are needed only if you are connecting to a non-standard port (default ports are 21 for FTP, 22 for SSH) and need to specify a specific directory to copy to.
Port (FTP/SCP only)
Remote Dir (FTP/SCP only)

Click Generate Backup and once the backup is created, the server will attempt to login to the remote server and copy it over.


Backups Explained
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