Backing up cPanel without hitting logout
Posted by Admin • Thursday, April 21. 2011 • Category: Linux
cPanel based hosting presents some challenges for automatic backups - there isn't an automatic way of creating local backups or any standard way of triggering their creation remotely. Numerous scripts exist yet none were quite the solution I was looking for - I am primarily interested in the databases and mail forwarders, though files wouldn't hurt either. Moreover - you can do this in a single line!
My Goal therefore is: Create and retrieve backups nightly. I don't want cPanel to push files to my off-site box, I'd rather initiate everything remotely and not have to open up access to some other system. cPanel does permit one to do this using a browser, hence it can be scripted. Really, scripting isn't even necessary - wget is all that is required! That said, I had a very hard time convincing wget not to visit the logout link on each page - once you log out, you're not getting anywhere anymore. So here is how I did it.
My Goal therefore is: Create and retrieve backups nightly. I don't want cPanel to push files to my off-site box, I'd rather initiate everything remotely and not have to open up access to some other system. cPanel does permit one to do this using a browser, hence it can be scripted. Really, scripting isn't even necessary - wget is all that is required! That said, I had a very hard time convincing wget not to visit the logout link on each page - once you log out, you're not getting anywhere anymore. So here is how I did it.
