Backups are an essential part of maintaining any website. It is important to create backups on a regular basis to prevent data loss in the event of a server crash.
To back up an entire account and all its websites:
Go to the "Account" tab.
Click "Backup My Account and Websites".
Click "Back Up".
You cannot specify the file name for the backup, but you can add a prefix to help you find it later.
Optionally add descriptive text about this backup in the comments section. Specify the volume size to create a multivolume backup.
Enter an e-mail address here to which a notification will be sent upon task completion.
Choose whether to back up just the configuration or both configuration and content.
Click "Back Up".
Depending on the amount of data you have, this can take some time.
To create scheduled backups:
Go to "Scheduled Backup Settings".
Check the "Activate this backup task" checkbox.
Choose how often this task should be performed: either daily, weekly or monthly.
Set the time and day of the week when this task should begin.
Optionally add a prefix to the backup name.
Click "OK".
By default, backups will be stored on the same server as your account. You could also perform a remote backup by choosing Personal FTP repository.
To set up a Personal FTP Repository so we can perform remote backups via FTP:
Click the "Set up personal FTP repository" link.
Enter the server's IP address or hostname.
Then type the username and password.
Click "OK".
To restore a backup:
In the "Backup Manager" list, choose the backup file that should be restored.
Select the type of data to restore.
Optionally enter an e-mail where a notification will be sent upon task completion.
Click "Restore". If there are any conflicts, they will show up now.
Click "Next".
Choose what to do with the conflicts: use configuration and data from the backup file, use the configuration from the current system and restore only the data from the backup, or do not restore any objects that have conflicts.
Click "Next".
To back up a single subscription:
Go to "Account" tab.
Choose the subscription you want to back up.
Click "Back Up Websites". This looks exactly the same as the account-wide Backup Manager, but the tools available to us here are specific to the subscription we selected. This means the Scheduled Backup Settings and Personal FTP Repository Settings we just entered are separate and will not show up here.
Click "Back Up".
Fill out all the options as described above. There are only two changes. First, it says Domain Backup in the comments instead of customer account backup. And second, you choose whether to back up just the domain configuration, or both configuration and content. Selecting the second option gives you the choice of including mail in the backup or excluding it.
This is the end of the tutorial. You now know all about the Backup Manager in Plesk.
