The Legacy Backup system will be deprecated in cPanel & WHM Version 74, and we anticipate support for Legacy Backups will be removed in Version 82 (currently expected in mid-2019). Before that happens, though, we are focusing on expanding the functionality available for the “new” Backup System. This replacement to the Legacy Backup system offers a more robust, faster, and over-all better backup solution.
Better, Stronger…
In case you haven’t heard, the cPanel & WHM Backup System, introduced more than 5 years ago, is our replacement for the Legacy Backup system. The new backup system offers the ability to back up accounts as uncompressed, compressed, or incremental backups. Scheduling and retention options are configurable for daily, weekly and monthly retention schedules. Server owners also can enable backups for specific users, define whether or not suspended accounts are backed up, back up system configurations, log files, and DNS settings.
This system comes with many other benefits as well. Beyond things like the disk space check, timeout limiter, and the migration interface, we include support for a number of remote backup destinations (including any FTP- or rsync-compatible destination, Google Drive, Amazon S3) as well. If those don’t give you everything you need, though, you can also create your own Custom Backup Transport Destination with ease.
If you are using the new backup system, you can also take advantage of File and Directory restorations. Our incremental backups allow cPanel users and webhosting providers to restore files or folders from account backups without requiring an entire cPanel account restoration.
…And Faster!
The account restoration side of the new system has gotten a lot of work in the last year or so, and restoration times have vastly improved since version 60. We did some testing, using some real-life backups that our users submitted for our testing. On a test account with normal account data, and 1000 emails in a single email account we saw restorations decrease from an average of 16.4 seconds to 9.1 seconds. That’s a decrease of 44.7%! A second account had 8 subdomains and a small MySQL database. The restore in v60 averaged 22.9 seconds, while in v74 it was only 9.5 seconds. That’s a decrease of 58.6%
Be advised that no two systems are the same, and your results may vary. For a quick look, you can watch this tutorial on the cPanelTV YouTube channel.
What’s up next?
While not currently available, we are working to add features that will help customers who might not want to migrate to the new backup system. One request is to allow a server owner to create multiple backups daily on any account, or have different retention schedules for different locations, or just store different backups on different locations altogether. Previously, a user would have to use both Legacy Backups and the Backup System to create two or more user backups on a single day. We have quite a few different feature requests for the Backup System, so please give them a look and vote on the ideas you’d like to see implemented! Take a look at all of the requests in the Backup category!
Migrate to the new system now!
In v64 we added a migration tool to help users migrate from the Legacy Backup system to the new system. This tool duplicates your current configuration, preventing you from having to manually set everything up in the new system again. If you haven’t already, take a look at the release note from that version, or our documentation on the feature.
For any further questions or concerns, please reach out to us via the cPanel Forums, Feature Request Site, or via our Support team, or you can discuss the Backup System with us at this year’s cPanel Conference! Looking to reach out directly? Join us via Slack, Discord, or our very own subreddit- /r/cPanel!
