Important notes:
Do not use full account functions (full backup, restore, recover, etc)
For a full account backup use the cPanel core functions.
Only use Acronis and Jetbackup for website files and directories and databases.
Nothing else, not emails, not cPanel directories and files!
Restore from a backup (not staging, the safe way in all cases):
- Cleanup destination root directory and database first:
- Take a backup of the destination.
- Delete all files in destination directory.
- Restore files (either from the tool or manually).
- Delete (drop) destination database tables (not the database itself).
- Restore database.
Backup/staging solutions:
- Acronis
- prefer it as first option, files in same data center
- automatic on server level
- can be slow to list each backup
- stored in /home/[username]/restored_data/
- Jetbackup
- second option, files are off-site
- automatic on server level
- can be even slower to list each backup
- stored in /usr/local/jetapps/usr/jetbackup5/downloads
- WP-Toolkit
- Backup (on demand, in
/wordpress-backups) - Restore from backup
- Saves backups in user root folder in a subdirectory
- Clone
- Copy (to another existing installation, like push to production)
- Backup (on demand, in
- Softaculous
- Backup (on demand in
/softaculous_backups) - Backup (automated)
- Saves backups in user root folder in a subdirectory
- Restore
- Clone
- Staging
- Push to live (if the staging function was used)
- Remote import (import and copy a WordPress installation from another cPanel account, local or remote.)
- Backup (on demand in
- Manually in cPanel
- a full cPanel account backup or
- download database and zip files in cPanel File Manager
- Manual via SSH
- dump database
- zip files and database
Note: while restoring folders that are direct subfolders of the cPanel account root folder the root folder is locked and the cPanel account is unusable until the restore process finishes. This is due to a cPanel peculiarity.
