Knowledgebase

How does the backup system work? How do I request a backup?

All of our packages come with an incremental backup service.  It is possible for files to be restored from this backup upon your request.  Below is a step-by-step guide on how our backup system works, and how to quickly and easily request a restore.

Backup Software Description

Our backup solution is intended to be a disaster recovery tool and not a file repository.  For this reason, restoring a single file will take as long to accomplish as restoring a complete partition.  We always recommend that our clients keep their own backups as there are times when our backup will not be sufficient under certain circumstances.  There may be times when your backups will be quicker and easier to access/restore.

We use an incremental backup system. The backup software performs a full backup once per month. It then performs a weekly incremental backup (meaning that it only records differences from previously recorded backups) once per week. The software performs a daily incremental backup for every day that does not fall on a month or week boundary.  

At any given point in time, you will have a minimum of one backup on our system, with a maximum of three (3) restore points available to restore from.

 

Restore Request Format

Please follow the steps below when submitting a support ticket in the customer portal to have files restored. By submitting requests in the following format, it allows us to most efficiently start the restore process.

1)  Know which file or directory you need restored.  Supply the full path to the file or directory.  An example of the full path to a file:

/home/username/public_html/admin/index.php

An example of the full path to a directory:

 

/home/username/

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If you are restoring a MySQL database. MySQL databases are stored in /var/lib/mysql by default. An example of a full path to a mysql database:

/var/lib/mysql/user_database/

If your databse was named 'judy_webstore' the full path would be:

/var/lib/mysql/judy_webstore/

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2)  After submitting the above information, we will respond to you with a set of timestamps. These timestamps will look something like this:

Mon 2010-12-27 20:52:22 -0500 (EST)

Mon 2011-01-10 21:38:58 -0500 (EST) 

Wed 2011-01-12 17:39:57 -0500 (EST)

3)  Let us know which restore point best suits your needs.  We will then begin the restore and update you upon completion.

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