Every Cid Hosting account already has 3 levels of protection: hardware RAID on the live server, a weekly encrypted backup to our NAS, and copies at our remote disaster recovery location. RAID is not a backup, and our copies work like an insurance policy, not a guarantee. It is still your responsibility to keep your own backups. See how our backups work.
cPanel's Backup tool lets you download a copy of your website files, databases and email settings so you can keep it somewhere safe, away from the server.
1. Open cPanel
Use whichever is easier:
- From the client area: log in at clients.cidhosting.net, go to Services, click your hosting plan, then click Log in to cPanel. If your plan page shows a Backup shortcut, you can click that instead and skip step 2.
- Directly: go to https://yourdomain.com/cpanel and log in with your cPanel username and password.
2. Open the Backup tool
In cPanel, find the Files section and click Backup. (The Backup Wizard next to it does the same job, one step at a time.)
3a. Download partial backups (recommended for most sites)
Partial backups are smaller, and you can restore them yourself from the same page.
- Home Directory: click the button under Download a Home Directory Backup to download your website files.
- Databases: under Download a MySQL Database Backup, click each database name to download it. Most websites (for example WordPress) need both the files and the database.
- Email: under Download Email Forwarders and Download Email Filters, click each domain to save your mail routing settings.
3b. Or generate a full account backup
- Under Full Backup, click Download a Full Account Backup.
- For Backup Destination, choose Home Directory to save the file on the server, or choose Remote FTP Server, Remote FTP Server (passive mode transfer) or Secure Copy (SCP) to send it straight to another server you control (enter its details in the boxes that appear).
- Enter your email address if you'd like a message when the backup is ready, then click Generate Backup.
- When it's finished, click Go Back. The file appears under Backups Available for Download on that page. Click it to download.
A full backup file can't be restored from inside cPanel. If you ever need one restored, open a support ticket and we'll help.
4. Keep your copies safe
- Store your backups off the server: on your computer, an external drive or cloud storage.
- If you saved a full backup to your Home Directory, download it, then delete it from the server. Backup files count toward your disk space.
- Back up regularly. If your site changes every day, back up more often.
- Now and then, open a backup to check it actually works.
Need a restore?
To restore partial backups yourself, use the Restore sections on the same Backup page. For a full account restore, or to ask us to restore from our NAS or offsite copies, log in to the client area and open a support ticket. Tell us the domain and roughly when the site was last working.
