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Version: 1.1.x (Latest)

Backup & Restore

All important data is stored in the database. This includes all servers, users, and other information.
It's important to keep backups of your database to ensure that you can restore your panel if something goes wrong.

How to create database backup​

You can use MySQL dump to backup your database.
This command will create a backup file in the /var/www/ctrlpanel/ folder.

# If you use MySQL server
mysqldump -u root -p ctrlpanel > /var/www/ctrlpanel/backup.sql
# If you use MariaDB server
mariadb-dump -u root -p ctrlpanel > /var/www/ctrlpanel/backup.sql

How to restore database backup​

To restore a backup, you need a fresh database. If you already have a database, you can use the following command to drop it.

warning

Warning, this will delete all CtrlPanel related data! Make sure your database is backed up before continuing.

# If you use MySQL server
mysql -u root -p ctrlpanel -e "DROP DATABASE ctrlpanel"
# If you use MariaDB server
mariadb -u root -p ctrlpanel -e "DROP DATABASE ctrlpanel"

First you need to create the database and reassign user permissions to it:

# If you use MySQL server
mysql -u root -p
# if you use MariaDB server
mariadb -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE ctrlpanel;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ctrlpanel.* TO 'ctrlpaneluser'@'127.0.0.1';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Now you can restore the backup:

# If you use MySQL
mysql -u root -p ctrlpanel < /var/www/ctrlpanel/backup.sql
# If you use MariaDB
mariadb -u root -p ctrlpanel < /var/www/ctrlpanel/backup.sql

If you have a backup from an older version of CtrlPanel, you have to migrate the database to the latest version.

cd /var/www/ctrlpanel
sudo php artisan migrate --seed --force

Automatically backup your database​

You can automatically back up your database every day at midnight, for example. First, create a read only user for the database.

# Create backup directory
mkdir -p /var/www/ctrlpanel/backups

# If you use MySQL server
mysql -u root -p
# If you use MariaDB server
mariadb -u root -p
CREATE USER 'ctrlpanelbackupuser'@'127.0.0.1' IDENTIFIED BY 'USE_YOUR_OWN_PASSWORD';
GRANT LOCK TABLES, SELECT ON ctrlpanel.* TO 'ctrlpanelbackupuser'@'127.0.0.1';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Then create a cronjob to run the following command at midnight. Run crontab -e and add the following line:

# If you use MySQL server
0 0 * * * mysqldump -u ctrlpanelbackupuser --password=<USE_YOUR_OWN_PASSWORD> --single-transaction --quick --lock-tables=false ctrlpanel > /var/www/ctrlpanel/backups-$(date +\%F).sql

# if you use MariaDB server
0 0 * * * mariadb-dump -u ctrlpanelbackupuser --password=<USE_YOUR_OWN_PASSWORD> --single-transaction --quick --lock-tables=false ctrlpanel > /var/www/ctrlpanel/backups-$(date +\%F).sql

This will create a backup at /var/www/ctrlpanel/backups-<date>.sql every day at midnight. Every file will have the date when it was made in the filename, so you can also resolve issues that happened a few days ago.

Application key​

danger

Never lose your .env file, more specifically, your APP_KEY. Without it, you'll lose almost all data that Laravel encrypts in the database using this key.

Backup the application key​

The app key is stored in the APP_KEY variable inside your .env file. You can either save the entire .env file (easier and recommended) or just the value of the variable separately.

Open your .env:

nano /var/www/ctrlpanel/.env

Store file content and/or APP_KEY in a safe place!

Restore the application key​

After you have reinstalled the panel go back into the .env:

nano /var/www/ctrlpanel/.env

Now, paste your old file content or just APP_KEY variable.