JetBackup Remote Backup Documentation

This documentation is to help you configure your server’s JetBackup configuration for remote destinations. While this guide is intended to be paired with our remote storage solution, this guide can be used to implement other additional destinations as it covers the basic functionality of the remote destination system that JetBackup utilizes.

JetBackup bases its destinations off of cPanel which allows it to have the same diversity as the cPanel ‘Additional Destinations’.

JetBackup expands and provides more diverse functionality for server backups than what cPanel’s backup configuration provides by default such as:

• Additional destinations such as SSH(secure rsync)
• Backup Jobs to specify multiple and/or specific backup times
• Clone capabilities
• Enhanced account management
• Restore and Download enhanced versatility

If you need assistance setting up your remote backup configuration, please reach out to the Support Department and we’ll be glad to assist anyone under our managed services.

Please note that KnownHost recommends SFTP and RSYNC connections utilizing an SSH Key over Passwords, you can find how to do this at these two locations: KnownHost Generate SSH Key and cPanel generate SSH Key via WHM.

Utilizing SSH Keys for these connections does require ‘root’ access – as such this documentation applies to VPS, Cloud and Dedicated servers.

Configuring for cPanel’s JetBackup

We’ll be going through the steps necessary to set up your remote storage for JetBackup’s system. A remote destination will allow you to generate backups to be used with your server at a remote location so that if you ever experience an incident, you’ll have something to fall back on.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is login to your servers cPanel WHM Interface via the ‘root’ user – this user is required to access the ‘JetBackup’ section of WHM.

You’ll access your WHM interface over one of the two following methods either by your hostname or your server’s IP address like so: (How to access WHM)

• https://host.domain.com:2087 (or http://host.domain.com:2086 if lacking SSL)
• https://your.ip.here:2087 (Will be presented with browser security warning, do bypass this warning as it is safe to do so)

Once you’ve successfully logged in you’ll want to access ‘JetBackup’ – you can do this by utilizing the left-hand search bar and just type in “Backup” and it should show you “JetBackup” as part of the options.

When using KnownHost’s remote storage solution, we recommend that you utilize SFTP or RSYNC as these both provide SSH Key access that prevents the requirement of passwords. As part of our Managed Services, KnownHost Support Staff will assist with this configuration.

Adding a Destination

Now that you’re within the JetBackup plugin you’ll want to click “Destinations” on the left-hand menu. This will take you to a screen that will allow you to add a new destination.

For the sake of this documentation, we’ll simply be addressing the standard method of utilizing passwords for easy understanding.

As such for this configuration, despite using passwords we still recommend the JetBackup configuration for your destination be set to SFTP, so we’ll use SFTP for the duration of this guide.

Click “Create New Destination” and you’ll be presented with a window that has a form to fill out. Change the dropdown from ‘Local’ to ‘SFTP’ and you’ll be presented with the following information:

If you’re utilizing KnownHost’s remote storage solution – you should have received an email with your account information presented like so:

  New Account Information
  Remote Backup Space GA
  
  Login Details
  Username: backups00000
  Password: knownhostisthebest1337
  Domain: backups00000.virtualserver1.com
  SFTP/SSH Port: 22
  FTP Port: 21

This information is what you will be using to fill out the SFTP configuration for your additional destination, when applied to the forms it’d be like this:

  Destination Name: remote backups
  Remote Host: backups00000.virtualserver1.com
  Port: 22
  Username: backups00000
  Password: knownhostisthebest1337
  Timeout: 30-90 seconds
  Maximum connection retries: 5
  Maximum concurrent connections: 2

Once your configuration is put in, check over it and make sure everything looks good – then click “Save” at the bottom of the destination form. You’ll get a successful notification that your destination was added.

You’ll then be brought back to the “Destinations” screen within JetBackup – click your new destination and several options will appear one of these will be “Validate Destination”.

Validating destination will confirm your credentials against the remote server to ensure that its able to login, if it’s successful we can move on! If it failed, be sure to double check your provided information.

Creating a Backup Job

Now that you’ve created your ‘Destination’ – we now need to create a ‘Backup Job’. You can reach this section by clicking “Backup Jobs’ in the left hand list within the JetBackup plugin. This section is directly under the “Destinations” section in the listing order.

A ‘Backup Job’ is going to allow us to specify what sort of backups configuration you want to have such as incremental and/or archived backups.

You can do this by utilizing the Backup job Wizard which will provides examples such as the following:

  Backup Contains: Full Backup / All Accounts
  Backup Structure: Incremental
  Backup Schedule: Every Day @ 01:00AM
  Backup Retention: 14 Backups

For what sort of backup structure you utilize depends on your use case. The possible structures are archive, incremental and compressed.

1. Incremental – Copy only files (changed or new) since the last full backup.
2. Archived – Copy files to uncompressed archive (.tar file).
3. Compressed – Copy files to compressed archive (.tar.gz file).

Incremental is going to be the best option to use when paired with KnownHost Remote Storage solutions. This reduces the amount of storage used and the bandwidth required per transfer and allows for only recent/new changes to be added to the backup.

This allows for you to maintain more copies of your backups across various times (daily, weekly, monthly).

Once the backup job is created, you only have to wait for it to run its scheduled period for results. Alternatively, you can run the job manually to go ahead and take a current backup.

We recommend reviewing the logs to check for any issues such as partially completed or failed backups.

Other Destination Types

There are many options to choose from, each with their own benefits or drawbacks. See the following table we’ve put together here: