Does cPanel delete accounts from the back after they are terminated from the WHM?

[WebHostPro]

I'm a little confused, I terminated an account and went to restore the back up after but it was gone. There was a feature request to remove backups of terminated accounts but they said they thought it was not safe to do this. Which it's not.

The idea was to add an option to remove deleted account backups not to automate it.

Am I wrong that cPanel just removes backups if the account is terminated now?

Also your backup doc does not describe what this option does:

Strictly enforce retention, regardless of backup success.For more information, read our Backup Configuration documentation.

Does this stop cPanel from removing backups of terminated accounts?

 

[RadWebHosting]

Hi WebHostPro,

It is my understanding that you can "strictly enforce backup retention" which will protect the number of backups per user account (regardless of account status - i.e. active, suspended, terminated). Otherwise, the backup retention of terminated accounts would be overwritten by successive backup cron runs.

For instance, your system is configured to take a daily backup on each day (Sun-Sat) of the week and your retention is 7 backups, an account that is terminated on Monday would have zero daily backups left in your system by Tuesday of the following week.

With "Strictly enforce backup retention" enabled, the system will retain the last 7 backups (using the above example) would remain on your server.

Please correct me if I am not understanding the scenario correctly.

 

[Anoop P Alias]

Backups of terminated accounts in /backup are not removed on account termination. But successive backup runs won't backup the account as its terminated and there is nothing to backup. The account backups you keep in /home/user/ will be deleted

 

[Infopro]

cPanelTV posted a video about the Backup system and how it works recently, here:

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

The legacy backup option retained backups for terminated accounts. This behavior changed in the new backup system due to the nature of how backups are stored. For example:

Legacy Backups Option> stored in /backup/cpbackup/daily/
Current Backup Option > stored in /backup/$date/

Since backups are stored and pruned based on the date of the individual backup directory in the current backup system, terminated accounts are only retained for the duration of your backup retention settings.

The Strictly enforce retention, regardless of backup success setting relates to retention of partially failed backups. It's purpose is to determines how the dated backup directories are pruned in the event one or more of the accounts fail to backup successfully. It's unrelated to terminated accounts.

We're actively seeking out features or functionality from the legacy backup system that you'd like to see in the new backup system in anticipation of the removal of the legacy backup feature from the product. I encourage you to open a feature request if you'd like to see an option to retain backups for terminated accounts beyond the configured retention periods.

Thank you.

 

[WebHostPro]

Thanks for the detail. So to be clear if I have a retention of one backup and do daily backups 7 days a week. Once the account is removed it will remove the backup the next day after it's removed?

 

[RadWebHosting]

Interesting scenario...probably best to also keep a weekly or monthly

 

[cPanelMichael]

Thanks for the detail. So to be clear if I have a retention of one backup and do daily backups 7 days a week. Once the account is removed it will remove the backup the next day after it's removed?

Yes, that's correct.

I also see we've merged a few feature requests regarding this topic at:

Remove backups of terminated accounts

The feature request name relates the removal of terminated account backup archives, but the discussion now also centers around the inclusion of a feature that determines a backup retention period on terminated accounts.

Thank you.

 

[WebHostPro]

Interesting scenario...probably best to also keep a weekly or monthly

Wouldn't that take two and three times the space though?

We pull all the backups to a remote server daily for safety so that not the issue. The back up space only has the same as the home space so it couldn't do more than one I would think. Ideally I would like to see cPanel backup directly to a remote server with incremental. Just patiently waiting

 

[myusername]

The link to the feature request appears to be broken. "No input file specified." is the error that is returned.

I'm not a big fan of the new backups system's inability to keep old backups. People often pay very late after termination and expect to be restored or may come back after weeks or months and ask to pay for an old backup because their new host blew up their current site, etc.

What's the state of the specified feature request?

 

[Infopro]

The Feature Request site is having some changes and updates made to it. Should be back online soon.