PLESK BACKUP/RESTORE UTILITIES MANUAL

Chapter 6. FAQ

Q: Does Plesk reloaded have a feature to back-up the entire system, virtual sites, MySQL, email etc onto a remote server at a different data centre?
A: The Plesk backup/restore utilities allow backing up the Plesk server configuration information as well as its current content (client accounts data, domains and so forth) as they are at a certain moment in time - the moment when the backup is carried out. Here you may find a lot of usefull documentstion on backup/restore utilities: http://download1.sw-soft.com/Plesk/Plesk7.1/Doc/html/plesk-7-reloaded-backup-restore/index.html



Q: Can you recommend any server backup software, that we may use to backup the entire filesystem onto another live server?
A: We would recommend to use system tools for entire filesystem backup, like rdump or rsync.


Q: Could you please just provide the exact command line I would us in SSH so that I can backup my complete server AND data per the following:

1). Backup to a local machine
2). Don't stop the services (I am the only one who uses Plesk)
3). Zip the file
4). Automate it for future backups on a certain day of the week.

A:
1) You can use file or directory name (not '-') after '-f' for this purpose. '--force' can be added dto overwrite existent backup file.

2) --nostop will stop only current domain. This is quite slowly, because much time is spent on swiching domains off/on. Usually accompanied by --tar-ignore-failed-read.
--nostop --nostop-domain won't really stop services.
--tar-ignore-failed-read is mandatory.

3) Virtual hosts are compressed by default. Additional options are not required.

4) To check cuttent cron jobs:

# crontab -l
To modify this list:
# crontab -e

Resulting psadump command:
# mkdir -p /usr/local/psa-backup
# nice -n +19 /usr/local/psa/bin -f /usr/local/psa-backup --nostop
--nostop-domain
--noblock --force --tar-ignore-failed-read

An example of the line for `crontab -e`:
15 2 * * 0 /bin/nice -n +19 /usr/local/psa/bin -f
/usr/local/psa-backup --nostop --nostop-domain --noblock --force --tar-ignore-failed-read >/dev/null 2>&1



Q: What files and directories need to be backed up for plesk 7 reloaded?
A: If you are using Plesk backup utilities, they will backup all the data required to backup. If for some reason you are backuping Plesk manually you need to backup following directories:
/etc
/home/httpd/vhosts
/usr/local/psa
/var/lib/mysql
/var/lib/psa
/var/named
/var/qmail
/var/tomcat4



Q: I have backuped Plesk through CP, then moved this backup to other server I have installed from scratch. When I tried to restore data from backup, it failed with error message "signature verification failed".
A: When you backup the domain through control panel Plesk signes it. So this backup can be restored through control panel only on the same server. If you need to install it on some other server (or on the same server with new Plesk installed), you can do this using command line utilities.

Example:
# /usr/local/psa/bin/psarestore -f <path_to_the_dump_file> --single-domain-mode --domain-name <domain_name> --domain-ip <domain_ip> --client-login <client_login>


Q: How can I make backup of remote Plesk and/or restore backup from remote server?
A: Please refer to chapter 4, you will find there detailed HowTo.


Q: When I am running backup for some domain, for some reason it became completely unavailable. It is not accessible by HTTP, FTP and also mail doesn't work. Why this happens?

A: When happens backup of some domain, this domain is getting stopped temporarily, for the time of backup. It has been done in order to keep data consistity, for Customer were unable to change any data during backup.


Q: There were some custom changes in configs. After backup and then restore of a domain/domains these changes are lost. Why? And how can I save them?

A: During backup/restore are recreated the files named.conf, httpd.include, qmail control files. You can save these files to .bak and owerwrite recreated ones after restore.



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