Setting up Google Drive backup

[David J. Bookbinder]

I very recently upgraded from shared hosting to a VPS account at BlueHost and immediately ran out of disk space, as I was unaware that both the OS and the backups are stored in the space allocated to my account. I was also unaware that I'd have to become a system manager, but I'm dealing with it.

Tech support suggested I move the backups to a Google Drive, so I set one up and got the appropriate credentials, following he cPanel documentation, but when I got to selecting "Google Drive" as the destination, it was not offered as an option.

1. What version of cPanel or the Backup utility do I have to update to in order to get Google Drive as a backup choice?
2. If I can't upgrade to that version at BlueHost, is there a way for me to set up the backup using the "Custom" option?
3. If the answer to #2 is "yes," where can I find the procedure documentation?

Thanks in advance,
David

 

[cPWilliamL]

Hi,

The Google Drive backup destination was added in cPanel 66:
66 Release Notes - Version 66 Documentation - cPanel Documentation

You can find more about the Custom option below, but I think it would be a big undertaking to write your own:
Backup Configuration - Version 66 Documentation - cPanel Documentation

Spinning up a cheap VPS for a backup server or purchasing a S/FTP account would probably be easiest.

Thanks,

 

[David J. Bookbinder]

Thanks! Although it took some head-scratching and browser switching (couldn't do it in Chrome), I managed to get my Google Drive verified as a backup location.

But now I see that I still have a problem. The VPS account I have is 30GB. 8GB is taken up by the OS, 8GB by the backup, and about 8GB by my files. It appears that the backup is first created in my account, rather than created on the Google Drive, then it's transferred to Google, and then it's deleted. Is that correct? If so, then I assume I still need at least 8GB free to store the current backup, and right now, with one backup on my site, I have only 5 GB free. Does Backup delete the current backup before it creates a new one, or only after the new one is created?

I'd rather not manually delete the existing backup before I make a new one. Is there a way to manually move it to my Google Drive before I run Backup again?

Thanks,
David

 

[David J. Bookbinder]

Update to previous question. I moved media files offline to reduce the backup size and created a backup on the Google Drive. I'd still like to manually copy the original backup to Google and so far can't find a way to do that. Any help here appreciated.

One thing that isn't clear to me from the documentation is whether I can restore my system directly from the Google Drive backup, or if I need to someone transfer it to the VPS server first, then restore. Can I restore directly from Google, using the WHM backup program?

Thanks again,
David

 

[cPanelMichael]

appears that the backup is first created in my account, rather than created on the Google Drive, then it's transferred to Google, and then it's deleted. Is that correct? If so, then I assume I still need at least 8GB free to store the current backup, and right now, with one backup on my site, I have only 5 GB free. Does Backup delete the current backup before it creates a new one, or only after the new one is created?

The backup archive is queued for transport to the remote destination once it's packaged into a .tar.gz file, and removed from the cPanel server once the transfer is complete. However, you may notice that more than one archive exists on the cPanel server during the backup process because only one archive is transferred at a time. The best approach at conserving disk space on the local system would be to use incremental backups. Remote incremental backups are currently only supported with the "rsync" destination type, however I encourage you to open a feature request to add support for remote incremental backups with the Google Drive destination type:

Submit A Feature Request

One thing that isn't clear to me from the documentation is whether I can restore my system directly from the Google Drive backup, or if I need to someone transfer it to the VPS server first, then restore. Can I restore directly from Google, using the WHM backup program?

You'd need to transfer the backup archive to the local cPanel server first. We document how to do this at:

Remote Restoration - Version 68 Documentation - cPanel Documentation

Thank you.

 

[David J. Bookbinder]

Thanks. I figured that was probably the case but hoped it was not, as I have a slow DSL Internet connection and downloading and uploading large backup files would take many hours and might not succeed. I assume there is some way to request a backup file from Google Drive, or some application that can make an FTP connection to a server directly, without the download/upload to my home computer having to happen. Do you know of anything like this? The only things I've been able to find sound very complex to set up and beyond my current skill set.

Thanks again,
David

 

[cPanelMichael]

I assume there is some way to request a backup file from Google Drive, or some application that can make an FTP connection to a server directly, without the download/upload to my home computer having to happen. Do you know of anything like this? The only things I've been able to find sound very complex to set up and beyond my current skill set.

Hi David,

I'm not aware of any additional methods to obtain those backups directly from the server's command line. Did you try using the third-party script available at the link below?

github.com/prasmussen/gdrive

Thank you.