Evault Backup Setup with Plesk

This article is designed to help you setup an unmanaged eVault backup for your Codero Server. While this artice is intended for dedicated server users with a Plesk control panel, the principles can be applied to users of other control panels no control panel.

Requirements:

Dedicated Server with root ssh access
eVault Backup account
Basic understanding of the Linux “nano” editor. See https://www.howtowebhost.com/how-to-use-the-nano-command-line-editor-in-linux/

The setup is divided into 3 sections. Plesk Setup, Server Setup, and Evault Setup. It is strongly recommended to perform these in the order they are written.

Plesk Setup

Backup Manager

Log into your Plesk control panel as administrator, then click Tools & Settings, then Backup Manager

Scheduled Backup Settings

From the Backup Manager screen, click the Scheduled Backup Settings icon.

Configure Backup Criteria

On the Scheduled Backup Settings page, complete the following:

Schedule

Check the “Activate this backup task” checkbox.
Set the Backup Period to “Daily”
Set a starting time for the backup.

Backup Settings

Leave “Add prefix to the backup name” blank
Leave “Create multivolume backup” unchecked.
At “Store backup in”, select “Server repository”
For “Maximum number of backups in repository” enter “7”
Enter your email address at “If any errors were encountered during the execution of this scheduled backup task, send notification e-mail to”

Backup content

At “Back up” select “Server Configuration”

Leave “Suspend domains until backup task is completed” unchecked.

Finally, click OK to save your settings and return to the Backup Manager screen.

Create Intial Backup

To create the inital backup, click the “Back Up” icon on the Backup Manager screen.

Server Setup

This section shows you how to setup your server to create unique backup files for each MySQL database. This will allow you to restore any database without requiring you to restore all databases at the same time.

Login using SSH

Log into your server as user “root” with your root password.

Create required folders

mkdir -pv /usr/local/codero/dumps

Create Database Backup Script

This script uses the “mysqldump” command to create unique backup files of each MySQL database on the server.

nano /usr/local/bin/dbdump

#!/bin/bash
for db in $(mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -e 'show databases' -s --skip-column-names); do
  echo -n "dumping $db..."
  mysqldump -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` $db > "/usr/local/codero/dumps/$db.sql"
  echo "[done]"
done

Create Cron to run backup script

The cron script below is set to run daily at 12:05 AM.

nano /etc/cron.d/dbdump

#Cronjob to dump databases nightly for evault
05     0      *       *       *       /usr/local/bin/dbdump 2&>1 /dev/null

Set the above created scripts as executable

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/dbdump

chmod +x /etc/cron.d/dbdump

Run the script to create the database backups

/usr/local/bin/dbdump

Setup eVault

Log In

Log into the eVault control panel http://webcc.codero.com/Login/login.aspx with the username and password you were provided.

Configure Agent

Find the unconfigured Agen, then click Configure This Agent

Name the Agent

Give the Agent a unique name. Typically we recommend naming the agent with the DS# of the server being backed up, then click Next >

Set Backup Source

Select “Local System” from the drop down box and click Next >

Recommended Folders

For Plesk control panels, we recommend the following folders:
/etc (Server configuration files)
/root (Critical logs, ssh keys, etc.)
/usr/local/psa/var/certificates (SSL Certificate Files)
/usr/local/codero/dumps (Database Files)
/var/qmail (Email)
/var/lib/psa/dumps (Plesk configuration backups)
/var/www/vhosts (Website files)

** EXCLUDE THE FOLLOWING FOLDERS **
/root/.autoinstaller
/root/parallels