Plesk Backup Manager

Overview

Backing up your content is very important. Backups help protect your content in the case of unforeseen catastrophes and provide known good instances of your sites and data that you may revert to. While our system maintains regular internal backups of all customer data for emergency recovery purposes, these are overwritten on a rotating basis. Therefore, it is best not to rely on these backups for your individual backup needs. So, depending on the situation and timing of your need for a backup, these internal disaster recovery backups may not be a solution for you. This is where self-managed backups are important. Plesk has a backup tool that you may use to manage your own backups to meet your specific needs. The following article details how to instantly backup your site, create a scheduled backup and restore from and backups you have created.

Creating an instant backup

With an instant backup, you can create an immediate backup of your domain's configuration, data and/or email. The following directions detail how to create a full backup of a domain.

1. Log into Plesk
2. Click on Domains. Select the domain you wish to backup.
   
3. Click on Backup Manager.
   
4. Click on Backup.
   
5. Select the desired settings for your backup.
   • Domain configuration: Backup domain content.
   • Mail configuration and content: Backup email.
   • User files and database: Backup additional users and databases.
   • Store in: File path where backups are saved. Can also choose to store in an external FTP server.
   • Full: A full backup of your server.
   • Incremental: Backup only content that has changed since the last backup.
   • Comments: For personal comments regarding your backup.
   • Exclude log files: Not backup log files.
   • Exclude specific files from the backup: Exclude a file path from your backup.
   • ...send a notification email to _____: Email if an error occurs during a backup.
   • Suspend the domain....: Suspend the domain while a backup is occuring. This will cause your site to go down temporarily.
     
6. Once you've selected your desired settings, click OK.
7. That's it! The task may take a few minutes. The backup will now appear in Backup Manage

Restoring a backup

1. While in backup manager, select the backup you've created.
   
2. You have the option to select individual objects to restore. However in this example, we are electing to restore the entire system.
   
3. Click Restore.
4. That's it! The task will take a few minutes, and a notification will appear when the restoration is completed.
   

Creating a Scheduled backup

1. Navigate to the Backup Manager.
2. Select Schedule.
   
3. Select the desired settings for your backup.
   • Activate this backup task: Enable the backup task.
   • Run this backup task: Select the frequency.
   • Use incremental backup: Create backup containing only information that was changed since the most recent backup.
   • Perform Full Backup: Frequency for creating a full backup.
   • Keep backup files for: Set how long a backup will remain on the server until it's automatically deleted. (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: otherwise your disk space may be come full quickly).
   • Domain configuration: Backup domain information.
   • Mail configuration and content: Backup email.
   • User files and database: Backup additional users and databases.
   • Store in: File path where backups are saved. Can also choose to store in an external FTP server.
   • Exclude log files: Not backup log files.
   • Exclude specific files from the backup: Exclude a file path from your backup.
   • ...send a notification email to _____: Email if an error occurs during a backup.
   • Suspend the domain....: Suspend the domain while a backup is occuring. This will cause your site to go down temporarily.
     
4. Once you've selected your desired settings, click OK.