Backup options

Update on my experience with this. I got one or two test backups to work from WHM to S3 and thought all was good, but it turns out it wasn't working as the last backup I had on S3 was from january 2015. Luckily I haven't needed to use a backup from this strategy and I've spotted this before I need it.

I have since got it working again - it seems the problem was the timeout* was set too low (30s which is the default) and changing that to 120s fixed it and I now seem to be getting regular backups as expected. Now I just need to figure out how to get them to rotate and delete past a certain date on the S3 side...


* Please note I mean the timeout setting in the 'Additional destination' that you create or edit for the S3 server on the WHM backup configuration page, NOT the two other timeout values that appear near the top of the page with much larger values.
 
interesting. Well, I set some lifecycle rules at the S3 end, will that prevent WHM from interfering? it would seem so as the settings in WHM are to retain 2 daily and 2 weekly but I already have 3 dailys in the S3 bucket.
 
ok I'd actually had the retention number higher, set it to 2 and now it does seem to be deleting older copies. So if I set that to 0, do you think it will then leave them for amazon S3 lifecycle rules to deal with, or will WHM just delete everything ? :)
 
I've been using s3cmd on several servers for many years along with a custom postcpbackup script. I didn't like the limited options cpanel gave (and this was made before cpanel had any built in s3 support). I wanted to keep more than a daily and a monthly backup. The script uploads the cpanel daily backups and manages keeping a weeks worth of dailies, a weekly from 2 weeks ago, and a monthly without having to periodically delete old backups.
 
well the built-in sulotion allows that if you set up the daily/weekly/montly retention properly, and/or it's pretty easy to get the same with lifecycle rules on the S3 side.

What's not simple, is actually getting a cpanel backup BACK to the server to restore from. The suggestion is to DL to computer first and then upload by FTP... yeah right.

That, plus the fact when I was doing some fairly simple removal of old test files on the AWS management console the stupid interface managed to delete ALL my backups in the bucket, instead of the single test file I wanted to delete.... I'll be looking into s3cmd
 
From my notes..

Get a copy of the backup file off amazon:
s3cmd get s3://domain.com-host1_backup/dailys/Friday/account.tar.gz account.tar.gz

You could then (i think) restore the backup from cpanel. I've never done that, but I have untarred it and restored specific files out of it.
 
I found a simple way to use wget to download the backup tar directly to the VPS, just have to change the permissions for the file in question (temporarily) on the s3 interface to allow all read access. Simple when you know how :)
 
KH-Jonathan said:
Have you had a look at cPanel's backup system which can utilize FTP, rsync, and now even Amazon services? I think this might be the perfect solution for you :)
Click to expand...
I think cPanel is costly.
I wont spend 15$ for cpanel Just for the basic use.
I am not arguing about the features. It has some great features but 15$ , it should be free. I would go with vesta cp panel which is free. it has features of making backup as well.
 
KH-Jonathan said:
Have you had a look at cPanel's backup system which can utilize FTP, rsync, and now even Amazon services? I think this might be the perfect solution for you :)
Click to expand...

Jonathan,

As you may see there are two services Knownhost is missing:

1. Backup servers. A place in KH were we can send our own data and have control over it with 2 or 3 backing up options. S3 has no rsync nor FTP option. There are few to none backup specific services out there. Looks too simple to me to recycle old servers to manage big disk arrays and let people save information there, but maybe I am wrong.

2. For resellers or bigger customers: an API/Web Service to integrate, manage, deploy or cancel your servers in a snap.

This two features I bet would be pretty much appreciated and valued.
 
Luis Delgado said:
Jonathan,

As you may see there are two services Knownhost is missing:

1. Backup servers. A place in KH were we can send our own data and have control over it with 2 or 3 backing up options. S3 has no rsync nor FTP option. There are few to none backup specific services out there. Looks too simple to me to recycle old servers to manage big disk arrays and let people save information there, but maybe I am wrong.

2. For resellers or bigger customers: an API/Web Service to integrate, manage, deploy or cancel your servers in a snap.

This two features I bet would be pretty much appreciated and valued.
Click to expand...

Both of these things have been on our radar for some time.

Specifically about number 2 - if we developed an API do you have the resources to develop using it? For example I assume you'd want to build a module into your billing systems that interfaced with our VPS control system? Do you want/need prebuilt modules for common billing systems?

An API is one thing. Building/maintaining billing system modules is a whole nother can of worms.
 
That would be it: having an API that will allow us (we have a PHP development team) or somebody else to build (and maintain) a WHMCS module that would help us make things a lot easier and faster.
 
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