You’ve heard it a million times. BACKUP YOUR DATA!
The question is, are you?? If you are not, you really need to be doing so.
Again, let me repeat, you really need to be backing up your website.
Beginners probably have their website hosted on a shared environment with cPanel running as the administrative tool. You can easily backup your website (files and databases) with cPanel. Here’s how:
- Go to www.yoursitedomain.com/cpanel
- Enter your username and password – if you do not know this information please contact your web host.
- Click the ‘Backup’ icon located on the main screen
- Click ‘Generate/Download a full backup’
- The “Full Backups” screen will display
- Select your backup location (choose Home Directory)
- Make sure your email address is correctly entered (once the backup is complete you will be emailed)
- Click Generate Full Backup button
- Backup file will be created in your home directory
- Once the full backup of your account has been completed you will receive an email message to the email address you specified
If you cPanel looks different from above don’t freak. Some web hosts setup cpanel differently. Here is an example:
- Look for a main toolbar icon labled “Tools”
- Click “Backup” from the left menu
- Follow instructions above starting with number four (4).
The backup file will be created on your home root directory. It will be a tar.gz file. This file can then be FTPed off your server to a local drive or CD (or both!) for safe keeping. I recommended doing this weekly at the LEAST.
You will have noticed during this process something stating the following (or something similar):
Full Backups allow you to save a complete, compressed copy of all of your site data either to your home directory locally or remotely to an FTP server. Full backups CANNOT be restored by CPanel automatically. Only your server administrator can restore a full backup automatically. If you want to be able to use CPanel to restore your backup files, you must use the separate HOME, SQL, ALIASES and FILTERS backup features, and then you can restore them below.
While this is a true statement keep in mind the following:
- The full backup contains A LOT of information. It contains MORE than you NEED but ALL that you WANT.
- Don’t worry! While this file cannot be restored automatically via cPanel, the correct pieces can be extracted and restored manually. It is just one huge zip file. Know that every file has been backedup as well as SQL statements generated for recreating and restoring databases.
Using cPanel to backup your website piece by piece is a post for another day!
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Paul Flyer loves to research the web and find resources and tools for building, maintaining and promoting websites. Based in Saint Louis, MO, he works in management and spends his free time sharpening his web development and copy writing skills. Feel free to contact Paul with any questions, comments or ideas. He is also available to help you with your own website.
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[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
Hey, great write-up! Not to be a total noob, but does this actually backup your MySQL databases as well?
Really useful information. I learned how to do this not too long ago, and since then I’ve been backing up my data weekly.
(I found you via ProBlogger, and so far this is definitely the most useful “How To” I’ve seen. Nice work.)
I can never back up enough, eh??
Our how-to is up as well if you’d like to check it out!!
Cary – Yes. It is not an actual physical database file. Instead it is a sql file that has “create table” and “insert” statements to recreate the database. If you look in the zip file, find the “mysql” directory. Your sql file will be there. A single sql file will be created for each database.
Nancy – Thank you! BTW, if I ever meet a child named Splenda I’m going to faint.
MamaDuck – Quack Quack Double Quack. (I hope you can translate)
it’s good advise, normally people take it seriously only after disatster strikes …
[...] 60. How to use cPanel to back up your website by Paul [...]
Interesting tutorial. I love it.
But there’s a new software now that can automate the backup process. Maybe you guys wanna check this out:
http://www.cpsitesaver.com
Hope this helps.
[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
Thansk for the post Jahn. Looks promising. Will take a look at it for a future post.
[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
does it backup webmails too?
Cool Articles ..thanks alot
[...] How to use cPanel to backup your website by Paul [...]
Thank you this is an excellent post.
[...] You must have atleast 1 site back-up everyweek. Here’s a more detailed information for this. LINK Protecting a site’s content and bandwidth from abuse. – Cpanel has a one click “Password [...]
[...] Recommended Web Tools || How to use cPanel to backup your website If its timing out you need to speak to your host. There are lots of ways to backup websites and all depends on how you want to backup. A local copy on the server, over FTP, SFTP, SSH, to another server? __________________ Domain Diagnosis http://www.domaindiagnosis.com [...]
Hi Paul
Wel;l set out article… very easy to follow.
I notice that the saved file ends in .tar.qz
What does the extension mean?
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the great article, people need to know that they need to always backup their work without having to wait for a disaster to strike first.
Thanks for pointing it out!
thanks Paul, a great tutorial but have been looking for info on how to backup the cpanel setup as i have about 6-10 domains of different types (addon/parked) and want to ensure that my account can be easily reset to original settings without doing 10 domains separately if i get hacked or the server goes poof! I guess it would be helpful as well if the web host goes belly up and i have to relocated to another cpanel host.
many thanks rod
Hey Paul, thanks for the how to. I’m new to cPanel so this was a good learning session.
However, I’m skeptical if I want to continue doing backups manually like this. I’ve seen other website backup solutions that backup automatically off site in case anything happens to the local server. It also allows you to restore to any operating system.
Using your method above, can I extract the files, then say upload them to a windows server not using cpanel? Thanks – Jen
Jenny,
While SitePlanB looks like it is still in the works, it does seem to be promising and would be easier than the method above. In my experience, a complete website backup in cpanel produces a zip file. This file can be moved and extracted to any server you desire.
Paul
Paul: Thanks for the follow up. I’m in the middle of moving some sites between hosts. Hopefully I wont run into any problems. – Jen
My cPanel looks different to your examples but I’ve managed to configure it and it’s working until it gets to the site files where it returns:
/bin/gtar: tjz/public_html/404.shtml: Cannot stat: Permission denied
followed by a massive list of all my files.
I wish more people would back up their websites.. seriously.. would save so many headaches.
I have my server set to do automated backups every day, and I store a local copy every week on my home computer. Feels safe.
The backup of a website with Cpanel is manual, it is bandwidth consumer, and not encrypted. There are tools like Website 2 Backup to do automatic, encrypted and compressed website files and databases backup stored on Emails, FTP, or locally. With integrated restoration system, double backup, and many more.