How to Configure Additional Backup Destinations on a cPanel Dedicated Server or VPS

This article explains how you can configure your cPanel server to back content up to a wide variety of mostly remote services, including our own remote storage service. If you use our remote storage service and need help to configure it, please contact us. We're here 24/7 to assist.

Backups to additional locations are handled by a separate cPanel backup transport process that starts once local backups have been created. The backup transport process runs separately from the local backup process.


Adding New Backup Destinations

To configure additional backups for your dedicated server or VPS, please use the following steps:

  1. Log into WHM as root. You can usually do this by accessing  https://your.server.hostname/whm  in your browser.
     
  2. Once in WHM, if the sidebar isn't visible, click the hamburger icon to expose it:

    Expand WHM Sidebar by clicking on Expansion Icon
  3. You can type "Backup" in the sidebar search box and then click on the Backup Configuration sidebar menu option:
    Click backup configuration in WHM sidebar
  4. The Backup Configuration options will appear in the main part of the WHM window. Since we want to configure more backups, you need to click on the Additional Destinations tab at the top of the screen:
    Select the additional destinations tab
  5. By default, no additional backup locations are configured. You will need to create one first. To do that you start by selecting a  Destination Type  from the drop-down list and then clicking on  Create New Destination:
    Choose an additional destination type 

There are lots of destination types to choose from and you can even create your own custom destination type if you wish. Select one of the tabs below to learn more about the common destination types. If you already have at least one additional backup destination configured, you can manage it following the directions below the tabbed section.

LOCAL SFTP FTP RSYNC

Managing Existing Backup Destinations

If you have already set up one or more backup destinations, you can manage them in the Additional Destinations tab of the Backup Configuration screen. If you aren't there right now, click on the Additional Destinations tab at the top of the screen:
Select the additional destinations tab

Below the Create New Destination section, there is a table of all of the existing alternate backup locations:
This is a view of the existing additional destinations table, which allows you to edit, delete, validate and enable or disable each destination 

The table provides the following information, including the name of the destination you set up in step 1 of the tabs above; the type of transport (SFTP, FTP, RSYNC, etc.); whether this backup destination is also backing up the server system files or not; if it supports incremental backups or not, whether this backup destination is enabled and actively sending backups to the remote location or not; a validation status icon (this only appears if you have run a validation recently); and a set of actions you can take on this backup destination. Each destination you've set up has its own row in this table.

Let's discuss the various actions you can take on the backup destinations in a bit more depth. The first action you can select is to Edit the existing backup destination. Clicking that takes you back to the backup destination configuration screen as seen in the tabs above.

Remember, that if you authenticate via a password, it won't appear in the password field, but that cPanel will remember the saved password. Only update the password field if you need to change it.

The next action you can take is to remove the backup destination completely. To do this, click on Delete. WHM will prompt you to confirm that you really want to do this. If you do, click Delete again, if not, click Cancel.

You can also run a test on the configured backup location by clicking on Validate. This will cause cPanel to run a test on that backup destination. It will try to connect, authenticate and then add and remove a test file in the appropriate location. This may take some time to complete. If it completes successfully a green check mark will appear between the Status and Actions columns. If there is an issue with the test, a red X will appear  in the same location. You can click on it to learn more about the result (which is most useful if there was an error). In addition to the check mark or X, a new tab will  temporarily appear at the top of the screen to the right of the Additional Destination tab that you are in right now. There will be even more information about the validation results in that area, including when the test was done and how long it took.

If you have several additional backup locations configured, you can tell cPanel to test all of them by clicking on the Validate All Destinations button which appears next to the Actions column in the destination table.

Finally, you can choose to leave the backup destination configured, but not actually back up anything to that location. This is useful if you want to  stop backups temporarily to that location, but don't want to have to reconfigure it later. Click the Disable action to disable the backup location. That will change to an Enable action if you want to turn it on again. The Status will also change to reflect whether or not backups are being made to that location.