FAQ

What is the fastest backup destination method?

Fastest backup destination will be either Local storage (provided that it's on a separate device), or remote SSH destination (provided that the bandwidth is very high and fast).

For best performance, it is also recommended to exclude files/folders, and disable backup for suspended accounts.

What does Incremental Backup mean?

Incremental backups will copy only files that have changed or are new since the last full backup.

If you activated 'backup retention' JetBackup will create a "point-in-time incremental backups", in which will use as little space as possible (using hardlinks). So a 30 days backup retention, of a 2GB cPanel account, will only consume 2GB + 30 Days of new/changed files (** At the moment, mysql is fully dumped, as it doesn't support incremental backups).

For best performance, it is recommended to use a server that is dedicated only to backups, and not a web server that also holds your backups or uses a separate HD device for backups if your backups are local.

The incremental backup feature with Amazon backup destination is limited to your backup rotation. For example, if we set a 7 day backup rotation, backups will be copied in full 7 times for each backup rotation. Once you’ve reached the 7th backup rotation day, you will start over again from the 1st, this time it will be incrementally, backing up only changes made in the last 6 days, and so on...

Does JetBackup provide backup storage?

JetBackup is a backup management software that allows you to choose your own backup destination storage. It does not however provide or come with its own storage space. Click on Destinations Overview for a list of all supported desinations.

How do I know if there is an error during a backup job?

JetBackup has an email notification system in which you can get email alerts for various jobs/actions/errors in JetBackup.

To set up email notification system navigate to Settings -> Notification.

Why are there no Backups showing up on Disaster Recovery?

Account restores and downloads requires full account backups generated via Accounts Type backup jobs and contains ALL backup items (Incremental backup structure allows you to exclude specific items from your account backups).

If you do not provide any one of the items locally (external DNS, email server), you may go ahead and include these on your backup job so that it counts as a Full Account Backup . The corresponding sections will either be empty on your backups or do not affect any settings/configuration provided externally.

What happens if I want to restore a backup during a high server load?

JetBackup has several mechanisms that help keep the server load as low as possible during a server backup/restore.

These settings can be configured through Settings -> Performance.

Here are some recommendations to keep the server stable during restores

• Settings -> Performance -> Queue Active :: YES This will make sure restore jobs are performed "one-by-one", so two (or more) users will not be able to restore accounts simultaneously.
• Settings -> Performance -> Restore Server Load Limits :: 5 If server load reaches this limit, restore process will wait for the load to go down. JetBackup will try to restore 10 times (1 minute delay for each retry) if server load still above the specified limit restore will be aborted.
• Settings -> Performance -> Restore sleep time :: 60 Time to wait between restore points, could be useful when server load is high (when creating/packing an account). Gives the server time to "cool down" before continuing to the next step.
• Settings -> Resource -> CloudLinux JetBackup has native support for CloudLinux system. The backup/restore process can be executed inside lve environment so the CPU & IO can be limited through CloudLinux's system.
• Settings -> Resource -> ionice / renice JetBackup can set the io scheduling class and priority for the backup/restore process. Setting it to 19 will put JetBackup in the lowest priority when trying to get HD IO operations.

Can I use JetBackup without root access?

NO.

In order to properly install JetBackup, you must have a licensed cPanel server with full root & SSH access.

Restoring an account will restore the full account or only the changed files?

Restoring a 'full account' from backup (all backup types orphan backups, or regular backups) will restore the entire full account exactly as it was backed up on the chosen backup date.

If you need to restore only specific files, you can use the "Restore files" feature.

Error while trying to validate your License: No JetBackup license was found for the IP

Occasionally there will be an issue with the activation process.

You will need to refresh your JetBackup license if you receive the error "Error while trying to validate your License: No JetBackup license was found for the IP x.x.x.x" when your license is verified as being in 'Active' or 'Reissue' state via: https://www.jetapps.com/verify-license

To force JetBackup to validate your license against our licensing servers please execute the following command from your server's CLI as root user

jetcli backup --license

Job ID X Partially completed - What does partially completed mean?

A partially completed job usually means that something happened during the job with one (or more) of the accounts in the backup list. The backup continued and skipped the problematic account(s), and wrote the related information about it in the job log.

This is usually a minor issue, that doesn't disturb the whole backup process. It can be further checked under the backup job logs: Logs -> Job logs

Accounts highlighted in red when listing accounts - What does this mean?

The "red" line indicates that these accounts are actually suspended cPanel accounts.

Although the account status it's not related to JetBackup, we found it was more convenient to mark the suspended accounts in a red line.

One of the supported features of JetBackup is not to backup suspended cPanel accounts. When you are using this feature, it is important to know that the highlighted accounts you are currently reviewing, will not be backed up.

Safety Backups? What are these Safety Backups?

"Safety backups" are a safe restore point. The safety restore point is created for the account before JetBackup starts the restore process. It can be useful if for some reason the restore was not successful or as expected, so you can always go back to the original starting point. Safety backups are cleared automatically on the daily cron job. To restore an account from a safety backup you should follow the same procedure as restoring from a "regular" backup. The only change is that you will see a "safety" location when you choose your restore point.

Is it possible to automate snapshot creation?

One of the great features of JetBackup is the possibility to create an account snapshot at the cPanel user level. This can be specially useful before making changes to an account, so you can roll back to your most recent snapshot if needed, instead of rolling back to the last scheduled backup.

There is no "official" way to create automated snapshots at cPanel user level. You can, however, create a backup job for a single account, and set it to be executed manually. Then schedule a cronjob to execute the job from the command line, using the jetcli tool Manually Running A Backup Job

Why My FTP Destination Is So Slow?

We strongly advise using SFTP as SSL secured FTP destination.

Failed to Restore Account Backups due to insufficent user permissions.

As a security measure, JetBackup uses the account's associated linux user to perform restores to their corresponding home directory. Having files/folders inside the user's home directory (/home/{USER}) that they have no access/permission to (typically owned by root) may cause the restore to partially fail.

To check if the user's home directory has any files/folders owned by the root user, please execute the following command on your terminal:

find /home/{USER} -user root

Why are my Directories showing Invalid Dates when browsing?

AWS S3 destinations do not include any modified dates for "directories/folders" due to the nature of object-based storage. This causes backups to show an Invalid Date on the File Manager. You can further verify this by browsing your bucket on your AWS console Manager which shows no date for directories/folders.

Can I use NFS for backup storage?

Can I delete backups directly from JetBackup?

JetBackup does not allow backup deletion manually or on-demand directly from JetBackup. The recommended way is to set up the appropriate retentions and filters on your Backup Job(s) associated with the backups you prefer to delete as well as adjust your Manual/Orphan Backup TTL settings and let JetBackup execute its automatic cleanup.

I terminated an account and the backup has been deleted. How can I restore it?

Jetbackup will store the backups for a deleted account as an Orphan under "Restore & Download -> Orphans". These Orphan backups by default will be stored for 14 days unless the setting is changed under "Settings -> General -> Delete Orphan Backups".