Destinations

Overview

A Backup destination serves as the storage location for your backup files (backup destinations can be remote or local). Below is a list and brief overview of each supported destination types so you can choose the most suitable destination for your specific needs or use case.

In general, it is almost always a best practice to make sure at least one copy of your server’s backups are located off-site (remote destination) in case of a disaster at your data center, home, or office.

Remote destinations are usually slower than local destinations to backup and restore from due to bandwidth requirements. With this in consideration, many clients choose to store at least one copy of backups locally and additional copies in at least one or more remote destinations.

Destination Types

Desination Storage Formats

JetBackup 5 currently supports 2 types of storage formats, depending on the Backup Destination you choose.

1. Rsync-Based destinations (SSH, Local), utilize the file-level storage (file-level backups), which allows you to access your backups directly and conveniently from your destination in a human-readable format.
2. S3-Compatible destinations such as Amazon S3, Wasabi, Google Cloud Storage, etc.. utilizes our new Backup Engine that is using object storage format for backups. This new storage format applies JetBackup’s new Proprietary Backup structure that allows for more efficient backups, and incremental capabilities to ALL destinations.

Destination For

There are two different Destinations you can create at this time.

1. Backup - Use the destination for configured Backup Jobs.
2. Clone - Use the destination for configured Clone Jobs.

Please Note: Clone destinations can only be created using the SSH Destination Plugin at this time. When configuring the SSH Destination for a Clone Destination you will not need to set a Backup Directory and a ROOT private key or ROOT credentials are required.

Backup Types

• Accounts - Backup Account Data from each account that you choose to include.
• Directories - Select system files/folders to backup to the destinations.

Backup Structures

• Incremental - Backup new and changed data since the previous backup.

  “Point-In-Time” incremental backups - For retentions on incremental backups, JetBackup generates “point-in-time” incremental backups that use as little space as possible (using hard links). For example, on a 2GB DirectAdmin account with 30-day backup retention, it will only consume 2GB + 30 Days worth of new/changed data.

  For databases, JetBackup generates a full dump of the databases for the initial incremental backup. If the databases are modified, JetBackup will then generate a new full dump for the incremental backup. Otherwise, the previous snap of the database dump will be used in the incremental backup.

• Archived - Backup data in an uncompressed archive (.tar file format). Uncompressed backups are faster to generate but require more space.

• Compressed - Backup data in a compressed archive (.tar.gz file format). Compressed backups use less space but take more time to generate.

Read Only

This option allows you to add the destination as a “Read Only” destination. You can only restore and download existing backups from a read-only destination. Read Only is required if the Backup Directory is already owned by another destination/server. This option is only selectable upon creating the destination and will be automatically enabled for any destinations added during a Disaster Recovery.

Create New Destination

To create a new destination, click on “+ Create new Destination”. Please check the Destination Type you would like to create for specific instructions.

Local Destiantion Example:

Destination Settings

Click on the preferred destination listed in the Destinations section to expand and view the available destination settings.

Enable/Disable Destination

Click on Disable/Enable Destination to Disable/Enable your destination.

Manage Destination

Click on Manage Destination to modify your destination settings.

Browse Destination Files

Browse files and folders stored in your destination.

Backup Visibility

This option allows you to set the visibility of backups/snapshots stored on the destination. When disabled, the backups from the destination will not be visible to your end-users.

Export JB Config

This option enables “JetBackup configuration” backup(s) which is required to perform critical JetBackup operations such as “Disaster Recovery” and recovering from database corruption.

“JetBackup configuration” backup(s) are lightweight, encrypted, and executed daily for up to 7 retained snapshots. The total compressed size of the JB Config Export Backups may vary depending on the number of backups indexed by JetBackup at the time the JB Config Export was generated. For more information, please see JetBackup Configuration Backup Job.

This backup is encrypted using the Master Encryption Key and is highly recommended to keep the key on a secure remote location (such as a password management software).

Validate Destination

Validating a Destination checks whether your destination is valid and reachable.

Reindex Destination

Reindexing resyncs data between your server and the destination. Useful in case of adding a destination that already contains JetBackup generated backups or if changes in the destination were made manually.

Delete Destination

Deletes your destination permanently. Make sure that no backup jobs are assigned to the destination in order to delete it.

Additional Information

Object Storage and the S3 protocol

Object storage is a type of storage where data is stored as objects rather than blocks. This concept is useful for data backup, archiving, and scalability for high-load environments.

Objects are the entities of data storage in S3 buckets. S3 objects are comprised of three main parts; the content of the object (data contained in the object includiing directories or files), the unique object identifier (Unique string used to identify the item within the bucket.), and metadata. Metadata contains information such as name, size, date, security attributes, content type, and URL. Each object has an ACL or Access Control list which dictates who is permitted access to the object. S3 object storage has distinct advantages such as allowing you to avoid network bottlenecks as well as a high degree of scalability and data security.

For more information regarding the differences between Object Storage and a Traditional File System in terms of how JetBackup 5 stores your data, please click HERE.

Commonly used binaries for Local/SSH

JetBackup 5 uses rsync to generate backups and transfer them to Local and SSH Destinations. When adding these types of destinations please ensure that both the source server and destination server are able to run standard Linux commands like the following:

• mkdir
• ls
• stat
• rm
• rsync
• mv
• cd
• pwd

Please note: This is NOT an exhaustive list of required binaries.

How To Secure Local Backup Storage

Disk Info

Please note that the column Disk Info is updated every 6 hours by default and on completing a Reindex.

Disabled Destinations

If a destination is disabled, it will be labeled disabled under Destinations Selection in Create New Backup Job. Having a disabled destination as part of an active Backup Job may cause a Partially Complete Backup Job. This can be verified when looking at the Backup Logs.

Invalid characters and file permissions

JetBackup can’t restore files and/or directories with certain special characters or permissions.

For a list of recommended special characters and file permissions to avoid, please visit: Characters to Avoid when naming Files and Folders