Requesting backups from other control panel flavors

[Matt]

In the never-ending pursuit of the new gameshow, "Pimp My Control Panel", I would like to enlist the help of other users that have access to backup functionality of specific control panels:

cPanel
Plesk
1&1
XO
Yahoo
any other large host with a proprietary backup interface


If you fall under any of those categories, file a trouble ticket from within the control panel marked as "Other" and be prepared to donate a backup tarball from the control panel.

The target of the new backup/restore system in esprit is to transparently permit restoration of the filesystem from any of the popular control panels. In other words, if you're coming from a cPanel environment, Plesk, 1&1, or whatever the case may be, getting your site up and running would be as easy as uploading the tarball and selecting the "Restore Backup" option from the control panel.

Other items of interest besides the structure of the backup are the options that you can select when backing up your site and the backup formats available.

[Ben]

I would do this, but my backup file was several hundred megabytes in size and I would rather not transfer that.

Let me know if no one else donates a CPanel backup file and I'll try to get it to you.

[Matt]

I would do this, but my backup file was several hundred megabytes in size and I would rather not transfer that.

Let me know if no one else donates a CPanel backup file and I'll try to get it to you.

Well we'll have to see what happens. Is it 100 MB in size exclusively from your files or 100 MB in size because it backed up system files you don't own, like /bin/cat, /sbin/hwclock, and so on? If it's the latter, then getting a small backup may be a difficult task. Ensim does the same thing when backing up. All hardlinked non-user files are coalesced into the big tarball that ends up being a couple hundred megabytes.

[Ben]

I'm not completely sure what is in the full backup, so I'll check right now. I do know that IPB was very inefficient in it's database and a few of the sites we hosted were quite large, but I'm not sure how it got this large because it doesn't add up.

The size of the backup file is 172 MB. I'm not quite sure that I use that much, though most of it is probably statistics I never deleted.

The tar file is taking so long to extract that I'm just going to upload the backup to my home directory and let you take care of it. gFTP says it'll take another hour to upload, so I guess I'll go find something else to do.

[Matt]

I'm not completely sure what is in the full backup, so I'll check right now. I do know that IPB was very inefficient in it's database and a few of the sites we hosted were quite large, but I'm not sure how it got this large because it doesn't add up.

The size of the backup file is 172 MB. I'm not quite sure that I use that much, though most of it is probably statistics I never deleted.

The tar file is taking so long to extract that I'm just going to upload the backup to my home directory and let you take care of it. gFTP says it'll take another hour to upload, so I guess I'll go find something else to do.

Thanks, I'll chgrp it over to root in the meanwhile so it doesn't count against your quota. Are there any options with performing a backup that may affect the overall outcome, or is it a simple, "Click here to backup" -> sends out tarball structure?

[Ben]

Yep, no options really. It does have the option to upload it via FTP to another server or your home directory, but I've tried it before and it's painfully slow (even slower than just downloading it and uploading it).

It also has the option to download a MySQL database backup, but those are just gzipped and are easy to work with.