Backup Your Account

It is always a good idea to keep a backup of your account stored on your personal computer or in a place where you can easily find it and restore your website if necessary. While we try to keep backups of your account on our servers, nothing compares to taking some responsbility regarding your webhosting account and keeping an up-to-date backup that you would feel comfortable restoring your website from. No matter how many backups we keep for your hosting account, if our backups become corrupt or compromised, restoring from your personal backup may be the only solution. Just play it safe, and keep a backup of your account on hand.

We have created a new system for creating account backups. This guide will explain the options that are available to you.

When you log into your cPanel, you will find a new icon in the Files section. The icon will look like:

User Account Backup Icon


Clicking this link will take you the User Account Backup page. An explanation of the process is provided on the page, but we will offer another explanation here.

Notice at the bottom of the page, there are two options:

User Backup Options


Here you can see that there are two options:

cPanel Only

More than likely this is the backup option that you want to select when you often want to make backup.

What does this backup? This will backup your database information, which is often what most people are after. If your website is controlled by a blogging script, such as Wordpress or a content management system like Joomla! then all of the posts you have made are stored in a database on your account. Keeping this information backed up will keep your posts backed up.

What does this NOT backup? This does not backup your home directory, the file structure of your account. When you install Wordpress or Joomla! or any script, there are files that are uploaded or created in your public_html folder. Selecting this option will not back up these files! This option will also not backup your e-mail accounts or your e-mail messages.

What file(s) will be created with this backup? This option will create one file in your home directory. The file name will be of the backup-%date%_%time%_%username%.tar template. You will have to download this file to your computer to store the backup. This is a tar file which can be opened with Zip utilities such as Winzip or 7Zip.

How do I restore this backup if needed? The best thing to do is to upload the file to your hosting account and contact support with details of what you need restored from this backup. These backups really aren't intended to be opened and restore by you, they are just meant to be provided so that you can have a backup of your account.



You are not limited to the number of cPanel Only backups that you can create. Which brings us to the next options.

Full Backup

This backs up everything on your account. This is a complete backup of your account.

What does this backup? This backs up everything. Your home directory, your public_html folder, your mail messages, your mail accounts, your databases, everything. Basically this creates a cPanel backup that is described as above and a backup of your home directory.

What does this NOT backup? This backups up everything, so there is nothing that is left out.

What file(s) will be created with this backup? This backup will create two files. As explained this basically creates a cPanel backup that is described above and a home directory backup. So this will result in a file backup-%date%_%time%_%username%.tar and backup-%date%_%time%_%username%-homedir.tar. You will need to download both of these files from your home directory and store them in a safe location.

How do I restore this backup if needed? Again, these backups aren't really meant meant for you to maintain. You can open either of these files with a Zip utility such as Winzip or 7Zip. And if you just need one file restored, this may be an option. But if you're entire account is messed up and you need your account restored from this backup, just upload both of these files to your host account and contact support with details on what you need done.

Why am I limited to only one full backup per day? A full backup will backup your home directory and your entire account. Because of this creating these backups can consume a high amount of resources on the server. And because your home directory contents likely will not change that often, generating multiple backups everyday is really not necessary. If your data is changing that often, then you are likely only updated your database and a cPanel Only backup is all that is often needed.

How often should I create a full backup? If this is your first time backing up your account, then you will want to generate a Full Backup. Having a cPanel Only backup won't help you if you need your entire account restored. To accurately determine how often you need to generate a Full Backup, you have to ask yourself some questions. How important is my website? If your website is a business website, then your website is likely very important to you and keeping a backup or some way of restoring your account should be important. If your website is a hobby website, your website is still important to you but may not be as important as a revenue generating website is for you. How often do you change your website? How often do you change the files associated with your website. If you make major changes to your website weekly, then its probably a good idea to backup your account at least weekly. However, if you are not changing the files on your website, a cPanel Only backup may be all that is needed. Generally, just ask yourself this question: Do I have a backup of my account that I would feel comfortable restoring from in the event that something happens to my website and everything is lost?



Also note that there is a text field that asks for a notification e-mail address. This is the address that will be notified when the backup of your account has been completed. This must be a valid e-mail address and can only be one e-mail address.

Do I have to use this backup system? If you already have a backup method that is working for you, then by all means continue to use that method. For a small website, I always recommend keeping the files and structure of your website stored in a directory on your computer. Then make changes to those files that are on your computer and upload them to your hosting account via FTP when you have saved the changes. This way the files on your computer and the files on the server are exactly the same. You can use this as a backup of your account.

Why does my backup take so long to generate? The system uses a queuing system to queue backup runs, so your backup may not be created immediately. You also have to take under consideration the size of your account. A larger account will take longer to generate than a smaller account. A cPanel Only backup will almost always generate faster than a Full Backup.

Remember to always download your backup, either the one file or the two files in the case of a full backup. If you don't download the backup to your computer, then this really negates the point of having the backup. These backups are meant to be generated so that you can download them and keep them in a safe location for yourself.

My account is over its quota after I generated a backup. Your account may reach or go over its quota after the backup has been created. Once you download the backup file(s) to your computer you can delete those files from your hosting account to clear up space on your account. Regardless of how close your account is to its quota prior to the backup, the backup system will create a backup of your account. But if you are very close to your disk quota limit, then after the backup is generated your account will likely be over its quota.

I hope this helps to explain the backup system. Remember, it is always a good idea to keep a backup of your account on hand.