How to Set Up and Restore Remote Backups in CloudPanel

[Nemesis]

I want to back up my CloudPanel-hosted websites to an external storage provider like Amazon S3 or Dropbox. How can I set up Remote Backups, and how do I restore a site from a backup file?

 

[Rootali]

CloudPanel includes a Remote Backup feature that allows you to store your site backups on external storage services such as Amazon S3, Wasabi, Dropbox, Google Drive, DigitalOcean Spaces, SFTP, or any service supported by Rclone.

Step 1: Set Your Instance Timezone​

Before scheduling backups, make sure your server’s timezone is correctly configured. This ensures your backup jobs run at the expected times.

Step 2: Configure Remote Backup Storage​

1. Go to CloudPanel → Backups → Remote Backups
2. Select a Storage Provider from the list:
   • Amazon S3
   • Wasabi
   • DigitalOcean Spaces
   • Dropbox
   • Google Drive
   • Hetzner Storage Box
   • SFTP
   • Custom Rclone Config
3. Follow the on-screen instructions based on the selected provider.

Example (Amazon S3):

• Log in to your AWS Console
• Create an S3 bucket
• Generate Access Key and Secret Key
• Enter the credentials in CloudPanel and click Save

1. Click “Create Backup” (top right) to run your first manual backup and verify that it's uploaded successfully.

Step 3: Exclude Files or Sites from Backups​

By default, CloudPanel includes:

• Entire home directory of each site
• Excludes: .ssh, logs, and tmp folders

To exclude specific paths, add them to the Excludes field:

/home/$site-user/

This will completely exclude a site from the backup.

Step 4: Restoring from a Backup​

Method 1: File Manager (Recommended for <2 GB Files)​

1. Download the backup.tar file from your storage provider.
2. Go to the File Manager of the corresponding site.
3. Upload backup.tar to the tmp folder.
4. Right-click on the file and choose Extract.
5. Copy and replace the files you want to restore.

Method 2: SFTP or SSH (For Large Backups >2 GB)​

1. Upload the backup.tar file to your site’s tmp folder via SFTP.
2. SSH into the server as the site user:ssh site-user@your-server-ip
   
   
3. Extract the backup file:tar xf ~/tmp/backup.tar
   
   
4. Manually copy and overwrite the files you need.

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Summary:​

• Remote Backups are flexible and support many providers via Rclone.
• You can run backups manually or rely on CloudPanel’s scheduled tasks.
• Use File Manager for small restores, SSH for large files.
• Always test your backups periodically to ensure reliability.