How to restore a full backup?

[SprintSlash]

I saved a full backup (in tar.gz) of a site generated by Cpanel on the server. I wish to restore the entire thing. I know I can restore it using Cpanel, but that means I will have to download the huge file and upload it (which will take days). Does anyone know how to do that without needing to upload the huge file from my web browser? or any ways I can do it via shell?

[drose25]

I'd like to know if this is possible as well. I have a fairly large user account that just won't transfer with account copy. I backed up his site using the full site backup and ftp'ed it to the new machine so I wouldn't have to download and then upload a 300mb file.

Now I can't figure out how to restore it. The Cpanel interface doesn't allow a locally hosted file to be entered.

[drose25]

DO NOT use the upload backup feature in Cpanel to restore a FULL backup. This feature is apparently designed only to work with HOME dir backups.

I uploaded a full backup using that method last night and all it did was untar the full backup in a directory called backup-0.18.2003_20-18-09_username in the user's /home/username directory. There's a full version of his site under that directory, mind you, but nothing was copied to his main public_html directory, no databases were re-created, etc. so it really had no useful effect. I could have done that from the command line and not spent 7 hours uploading a humongous file.

Since this user has some mailman archives and other things he really wants transferred, I am thinking I will delete the contents of his homedir at the old site, then use the Cpanel transfer function since his account should then be small enough, and then just untar the files back into the right directory. May or may not work for you depending on how large an account you can transfer and how much space is used with databases, etc.

If you have shell access at your old site you're transferring from, do a &df -v& command to see disk space available. You're interested in the /tmp directory. You may also be able to see this info from WHM if your host hasn't disabled the service status link. The space available there pretty much determines how large the tarball for the account you want to transfer can be.

Hope this helps!

[drose25]

Cpanel support said to use /scripts/restorepkg to unpack full backups.

Ex:

/scripts/restorepkg username

Note that your backup will need to be in the home directory and named cpmove-username rather than the long backup file name that is generated by default.

I didn't have any luck getting this to work properly, primarily I got the same error I did when transferring an account. I think it stems from incomplete or malformed tarballs on the original server side. Your mileage may vary.

Good luck.

[hockeythug]

Originally posted by drose25
Cpanel support said to use /scripts/restorepkg to unpack full backups.

Ex:

/scripts/restorepkg username

Note that your backup will need to be in the home directory and named cpmove-username rather than the long backup file name that is generated by default.

I didn't have any luck getting this to work properly, primarily I got the same error I did when transferring an account. I think it stems from incomplete or malformed tarballs on the original server side. Your mileage may vary.

Good luck.

This is true, and it does work. However, cpmove-username must be the name of the directory that you unpacked the backup tarball into, not the tarball itself. Once I made that change, this worked beautifully.

Hope that helps someone out there.

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[shub]

Ok... got the account to backup and i restored it on the server. In my case I was transfering an account from one server to another. I also think that the initial server had a previous version of cpanel on it (didn't have root access) and the new server has the latest (have root access).

Everything looks good initially but when i update the account packages the sever space qouta on their account keeps defaulting to 'unlimited'. even if i change it by going to modify qouta.

Any thoughts? is there a script to update old versions of cpanel accounts to new versions or is there an account repair script that might do the trick?

- Sam

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[Arvand]

Thats just a general bug when you move accounts. It happens to my accounts from the same cpanel version too. run /scripts/fixquotas after you do the changes. It will take long but it will fix the quotas for you.

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[rix]

hmm...
im having problem while running /script/restorepkg rix

its says
Extracting Domain....Done
Sorry, the copy failed. Unable to find the cpanel user file

in /home/rix theres a file backup-<date>_<unknow>_rix.tar.gz

so...what does it means by unable to find cpanel user file

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[bonnmac]

Originally posted by rix
hmm...
im having problem while running /script/restorepkg rix

its says
Extracting Domain....Done
Sorry, the copy failed. Unable to find the cpanel user file

in /home/rix theres a file backup-<date>_<unknow>_rix.tar.gz

so...what does it means by unable to find cpanel user file

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

I'm having the same issue. I've already tried all the methods in this post and I get this same error with everyone method.

Any other ideas?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[rix]

I just found the solution. untar the backup_<date>_<unknown>_<user>.tar.gz then the directory backup_<date>_unknown>_<user> will showed up. After that just rename that folder to cpmove-<user>. Make sure the cpmove-<user> dir is in ur /home then you can run /scripts/restorepkg <username>. I found out that if the user dosen't exist, it will create it and if its there, it would just override the current file. I find it alot more better to transfer user this way then using the transfer tool as its buggish.

[bonnmac]

Originally posted by rix
I just found the solution. untar the backup_<date>_<unknown>_<user>.tar.gz then the directory backup_<date>_unknown>_<user> will showed up. After that just rename that folder to cpmove-<user>. Make sure the cpmove-<user> dir is in ur /home then you can run /scripts/restorepkg <username>. I found out that if the user dosen't exist, it will create it and if its there, it would just override the current file. I find it alot more better to transfer user this way then using the transfer tool as its buggish.

What tar directives did you use? zxpf?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[comyc]

Hay alguien que pudiese traducir este hilo al castellano.
Con los traductores se consigue un pupurri de la ostia.
Gracias

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[Arvand]

Originally posted by bonnmac
What tar directives did you use? zxpf?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

tar -xzvf filename is what i used

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[rix]

Originally posted by bonnmac
What tar directives did you use? zxpf?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

i use tar zxf for .tar.gz files

anyway just to clear things up on how i did the /script/restorepkg

assume the backup file named as following

/home/backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz
tar zxf backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz
mv backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz cpmove-rix
/scripts/restorepkg rix

on starting of the script should have error because it could't find the .tar.gz file but it will continue processing the backup folder (cpmove-rix)

cheers

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[d-woo]

assume the backup file named as following

1. /home/backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz
2. tar zxf backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz
3. mv backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz cpmove-rix
4. /scripts/restorepkg rix

Thanks Rix...but there is a slight error on line #3 above.

It should read:
3. mv backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix cpmove-rix

(without the .tar.gz after 11-11-11_rix)

It should read as follows:

assume the backup file named as following

/home/backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz 
tar zxf backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix.tar.gz
mv backup-00-00-00_11-11-11_rix cpmove-rix
/scripts/restorepkg rix