Backups and restoration in cPanel

Importance of backups

Backups are your safety net. A human error, a hack or a failed update can leave your site inaccessible. At Baires Host we offer automatic daily backups with JetBackup.

Full backup from cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel
2. Go to Files → Backup or Backup Wizard
3. Click Download a Full Account Backup
4. Select destination: Home Directory
5. Click Generate Backup
6. When ready, download the file

Note: The full backup includes files, databases, emails and configuration.

Partial backups

From the same section you can download separately:

• Home Directory: Files only
• MySQL Databases: Each individual database
• Email Forwarders/Filters: Email configuration

JetBackup (automatic backups)

JetBackup maintains daily copies of your account:

1. In cPanel → Files → JetBackup
2. Select the restoration type:

• Full Account: Restore everything
• Files: Specific files
• Databases: Databases
• Emails: Email accounts
• Cron Jobs: Scheduled tasks

Restore specific files

1. In JetBackup → File Backups
2. Select the backup date
3. Navigate to the file or folder
4. Click Restore or Download

Restore a database

1. In JetBackup → Database Backups
2. Select the database
3. Choose the date
4. Click Restore

Restore emails

1. In JetBackup → Email Backups
2. Select the email account
3. Choose the date
4. Click Restore

Manual backup via SSH

# File backup
tar -czf ~/backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz public_html/

# Database backup
mysqldump -u username -p database_name > ~/db-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

# Full backup (files + DB)
tar -czf ~/full-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz public_html/ db-backup-*.sql

Schedule automatic backups with Cron

# Daily backup at 3 AM
0 3 * * * tar -czf ~/backups/site-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).tar.gz ~/public_html/

# Weekly database backup
0 4 * * 0 mysqldump -u user -pPASS dbname > ~/backups/db-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).sql

Restore a full backup

# Extract files
cd ~/public_html
tar -xzf ~/backup-20260115.tar.gz

# Import database
mysql -u username -p database_name < ~/db-backup-20260115.sql

Best practices

• Download a local backup at least once a week
• Verify that backups can be restored (test in a staging environment)
• Keep at least 7 days of backups
• Make a backup BEFORE any major update
• Store backups in an external location (Google Drive, S3, etc.)