How to Back Up Websites on Your Hosting Server (WHM, cPanel, hPanel)

Do you know if your website is actually backed up? Many site owners rely on their hosting provider and have never checked. If your site is hacked, a plugin update breaks it, or the server fails, a recent backup is the only quick way back. Here’s how to back up websites on your hosting server easily, with WHM on a VPS or dedicated server, or with the backup tools in cPanel and hPanel on shared hosting, plus the settings that matter most.

Quick answer: On a VPS or dedicated server, log in to WHM as root and open Backup > Backup Configuration. Enable backups, choose daily, weekly and monthly schedules and how many copies to keep, store them in /backup (not /home), and add an off-site destination. On shared hosting, use your control panel’s backup tool (cPanel Backup, JetBackup or hPanel Backups) and download a copy regularly.

Back up a VPS or dedicated server with WHM

If you manage your own server with root access, WHM can back up every account, its files and its databases on a schedule.

Step 1: Open Backup Configuration

Log in to WHM as root and go to Backup > Backup Configuration. Turn on Enable Backups and choose Compressed backups to save space.

Step 2: Set the schedule and retention

Choose how often backups run (daily, weekly, monthly) and how many copies of each to keep.

Step 3: Choose what to back up

Back up user accounts, their files, and all databases. Including system files makes restoring a whole server much easier.

Step 4: Pick a safe backup directory

WHM stores backups in /backup by default, outside the /home folder where all the sites live. Keep it that way. Never store backups in /home: if someone gains access to a user account, they could tamper with backups there, but they can’t touch a root-owned folder.

Also tick the option to retain backups in the default directory, so local copies are kept even after they’re copied to another destination.

Step 5: Add an off-site destination

A backup on the same server won’t help if the whole server fails. In Additional Destinations, add Amazon S3, an S3-compatible service, SFTP or Google Drive. Here’s how we set up website backups on Amazon S3.

Watch your storage space

Backups are big. When we set this up, each daily backup of our server used about 1 GB. Keeping two daily, two weekly and two monthly backups used over 6 GB, about 30% of our 20 GB hosting plan, and more frequent backups could easily fill half of it. Balance how many copies you keep against your disk space, and move older copies off-site.

Back up websites on shared hosting

Most shared hosting plans don’t give you WHM, but they still include backup tools:

• cPanel Backup: go to Files > Backup to download a full account backup, or separate home directory and database backups.
• JetBackup: many cPanel hosts include it, with daily snapshots you can restore with one click.
• Hostinger hPanel: Files > Backups shows automatic weekly or daily backups, depending on your plan, and lets you create and download your own.

Don’t rely only on your host’s automatic backups. Download a copy every month, or use a plugin to send backups off-site automatically.

WordPress backup plugins

For WordPress sites, a plugin adds a second layer. UpdraftPlus (free) schedules backups to Google Drive, Dropbox or S3. Jetpack VaultPress Backup, which we’ve used for years, takes real-time cloud backups and offers one-click restores. Knowing how to work with your database also helps in emergencies, for example to change a WordPress password with phpMyAdmin.

Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule

Keep 3 copies of your data, on 2 different types of storage, with 1 copy off-site. For a website that could mean the live site, a server backup, and an off-site copy on S3 or Google Drive. And test a restore every few months, because a backup that won’t restore is no backup at all.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I back up my website?

Daily for sites that change often, such as stores or busy blogs. Weekly is enough for sites that rarely change.

Does my hosting company back up my site?

Most do, but retention and restore options vary, and backups may be on the same infrastructure. Check your plan, and keep your own copies.

Where are WHM backups stored?

In /backup by default, plus any additional destinations you configure.

Have you checked the backup settings on your server lately? Do it today.