This feature of cPanel is very useful for your website. We can use backup feature for transferring our website to the new host. If we are making a change in the website files or database, we can create a backup of website. So that, if in future anything wrongs happens to the website while editing, we can always restore to as it was before. If any problem occurs with the hosting provider, you will always have a copy of the website.

cPanel Backup creates a zipped copy of your entire website or a part of your website. There are two types of Backup in your cPanel Backups.

Full Backup

Full Backup creates a zipped copy of your entire website and cPanel account. It includes all the files you own or you have access to. It also includes all the databases, email accounts, email lists, subdomain, etc.

Full Backups cannot be restored through cPanel interface. It is only used when you are transferring your current host to the new host. You need to upload this zipped backup into your home directory and ask your hosting provider to restore it.

To download your full website backup, please follow these steps −

Step 1 − Open cPanel Backup by clicking Backup from the Files section in cPanel Home.

At the top, you will find Full Backup as shown below –

Step 2 − Click on the Big Blue button on which “Download a Full Website Backup” is written and you will be taken to this screen.

Step 3 − Select Backup destination, leave it as home directory. This will create a backup in your home directory, from where you can download it later. Enter the email address, where you want to receive a notification, when full backup of your website is ready to be downloaded. As full website backup takes time to generate.

Step 4 − Click Generate Backup and you will see a success message of Backup in Progress.

To download the Full Website Backup, you can always come back to this page after you receive your email notification and you will see a screen similar to the one shown below.

Download your backup by clicking over the backup link.

Partial Backups

Partial backup is created and can be downloaded instantly. Through Partial Backup, you can download your Home Directory, Databases, Email Forwarders and Email Filters separately. You can restore the downloaded backups any time by uploading them to cPanel using the same interface.

To use this feature, open your Backup section using the same method used above in Step 1, scroll down and you will see a similar interface shown here, interface will vary according to your domain and data.

You can click Home Directory button to download your home directory backup. To restore your home directory, you can upload the same file in the right hand side interface on which Restore a Home Directory Backup is written.

You can do the same with Databases, Email Forwarders and Email Filters.

 

You can use cPanel Backup Wizard to Backup and Restore your cPanel website step by step. cPanel Backup wizard is created for non–advanced users to simplify the backup and restore process.

To use cPanel Backup Wizard, open this interface by clicking the Backup Wizard link, which can be found under the Files section of the cPanel Home.

Once you are inside your Backup Wizard you can Create Backups or Restore Backups through the similar Interface shown below –

To use this Backup Wizard, there are 3 important steps −

If you need to download backup of your website

Step 1 − Select Backup.

Step 2 − Select Full or Partial backup, as stated in the previous chapter. We cannot restore Full Backup, same applies here too. If you wish to download Partial Backup, you can click on any one from the Home Directory, MySQL Databases or Email Forwards & Filters. Partial Backup downloaded from Backup Wizards can be restored through the Backup Wizard only.

Step 3 − Download your backup according to your choice.

If you need to restore your website form the backup you downloaded, follow these steps −

Step 1 − Select Restore from Backup Wizard Interface.

Step 2 − Select Restore Type from Home Directory, MySQL Databases or Email Forwarders & Filters.

Step 3 − Upload your backup file to and click on Restore Button to restore your backup.

 

cPanel File Manager gives you useful options to quickly manage your files within the cPanel interface. It’s easy to use and it removes the hassles of using FTP. You can create, upload, modify or remove files from this interface. It also gives the feature of moving files to Trash before permanently deleting them, from which it can be recovered later.

To open the file manager, click on File Manager in the Files section.

It will open a new tab and once you are in File Manager, you will see a Dashboard like this.

cPanel File Manager gives you a lot of flexibility for Navigating within your files.

You can use file manager for following tasks.

Searching for a File

To search for a file, use the search bar on top of the File Manager Dashboard. You can search within all your files, public_html or current directory, then write the file name in next input box and click go to search for a file.

Note − public_html is folder in cPanel, all the files which are accessible from the frontend of your website are stored in this directory. Index.html or index.php found in this folder loads first, when somebody accesses your website from frontend by your URL.

File Manager Settings

To access cPanel File Manager Preferences, click setting buttons from the top of the Dashboard. You will see a Prompt as shown below.

• By default, cPanel File manager opens the Home Directory of your account, when opening the cPanel. But, we can override this by choosing it with Web Root, which is public_html folder of Public FTP root or with a Document root of your domain or any subdomain you create.
• In Linux, hidden files have a single Dot (.) in front of them. The default cPanel File Manager does not display them, but you can choose to show hidden files by enabling Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) option.
• When we open a text file, which may be HTML, PHP or Plain Text file, cPanel opens a dialog to check the character encoding of the file, to ensure maximum compatibility, when editing the file. You can disable this feature by selecting – Disable Character Encoding Verification Dialogs.

Working with File Manager

Creating a File

To create a new File, navigate to the directory, where the file needs to be created and then click New File from the Dashboard. A prompt opens and asks you the file name. Enter it accordingly with the extension of file and Path, where the file will be created. Finally, click Create New File and a new file will be created.

Creating a Folder

To create a new Folder or Directory, navigate to the directory in which you want to create the folder. Click on New Folder from the Dashboard. A Prompt will be opened to ask you name of your New Folder. Enter your desired Folder name and Click Create New Folder. Your new folder will be created.

Copying

You can copy a single file or folder or even multiple files or folders. To copy a single file or folder select what you want to copy with a single mouse click over the it and Click Copy. You will be asked the file path where you wish to copy the file or folder to, enter the Path accordingly and click Copy File(s).

To copy multiple files or folders, single click on the desired files or folders by holding down the ctrl key to select multiple files or folder and then click on copy. Enter the desired location and Click to Copy File(s) button to copy multiple files.

Moving

You can move a single file or folder or multiple ones. To move a single file or folder, select the one that you want to move with a single mouse click over it and Click on Move. You will be asked the file path where you wish to move the file or folder to, enter the Path accordingly and click on Move File(s).

To move multiple files or folders, single click on the desired files or folders by holding down the ctrl key to select multiple files or folder and then click on move. Enter the desired location and Click to Move File(s) button to move multiple files.

Uploading a File

To upload a file from the cPanel File Manager Interface, navigate to the directory in which you wish to upload and then, click Upload. You will find the interface shown below.

You can Drag and Drop the file to upload or you can select the file from Select File button. If you want the File Manager to automatically overwrite the files with same name, you can select – Overwrite existing files checkbox.

Downloading a File

To download a file from the cPanel File Manager, you can select the single file or multiple files with single click on file name, and click over Download to download the files.

Deleting a File or Folder

To delete Single or Multiple file or folder just select the files with single mouse click and click on Delete button. You will get a prompt for sending the files into Trash, if you want to permanently delete the files then select Skip the Trash checkbox. If the check box is not selected, files are moved to Trash Folder from where you can recover them later.

Renaming a File or Folder

To rename a File or Folder, select the file or folder with a single mouse click and Click on rename. You will get a prompt to enter new file or folder name. Enter file or folder name accordingly and click on Rename File button to save. You can also double click on Name of any File or Folder to rename the file.

Text Editor

To edit any text file with simple text editor, select the file and click on Edit button. You will get a prompt with Encoding check if enabled, then click on Edit in prompt to edit the file. Text editor will open in a new tab, where you can edit the file. You can also switch to Code editor from here. When you have finished editing, click Save to save the File.

Code Editor

Code editor makes it easy to edit those files, which contains code in them. It differentiates color between codes, which makes it easy to edit those files.

Extracting a File

To extract a File which are compressed, select the file you wish to extract and click on Extract Button. You will get a prompt to enter the path where you wish to extract the files, if you enter a path which is not existing, cPanel File Manager will create the directory and extract the file in it.

Note − cPanel File Manager can only extract files which are in Zip, GZip and BZip2 type of compression.

Compressing a File or Folder

To compress a folder or a single or multiple files, select the files and click on Compress. You will get a prompt, select the compression method where you can choose from Zip, Gzip or Bzip2. It will ask you to enter the file name, enter file name accordingly and click Compress File(s). After compression, the result will be shown to you.

Viewing a File

This option helps you to view the content of known file types within cPanel Interface. Select the file you wish to view and click on View. It will open a new tab and the content of file will be shown to you.

All files and directories in Linux Operating System has access permissions. This feature gives the ability to the user for setting up different access levels for each user and also Operating system gets the ability to deal with different request for accessing the file. This feature makes system more secure to potential security threats. There are three types of access permissions −

• Read − It is denoted by ‘r’ and number 4, it gives ability to the user for reading the file only.
• Write − It is denoted by ‘w’ and number 2, it gives ability to the user for writing into the file only.
• Execute − It is denoted by ‘x’ and number 1, it gives ability to user for executing the file only.

Access permissions can be given in groups too, for example, if we want to give a file to read and write permission only, we can assign ‘rw–‘ to that file or in numerical form, we can assign number 6 – as 4 for read and 2 for write equals to 6.

These access permissions are given to three types of users −

• User − It is owner of the file.
• Group − It is the group of users in which Owner lies.
• World − It is referred to everyone else.

We give access permissions according to file types in cPanel. By default, cPanel File Manager gives 6-4-4 permissions to the users – 6 to the User, 4 to the Group and 4 to the World. Most of the time we do not need to change the file permissions unless needed.

You can change the file permissions in cPanel environment by using the following steps −

Step 1 − Go to File Manager from cPanel Home.

Step 2 − Navigate to the File or Folder you wish to change permissions to and select the file or folder by a single click of the mouse.

Step 3 − Click on Permissions link from the Top menu of File Manager and you will get a Prompt as shown below.

Step 4 − Choose permissions according to your need and Click on Change Permissions to save the new access permissions of the file.