cPanel Cron Backups
Probably the most popular hosting software out there, it’s somewhat surprising cPanel doesn’t have a method of allowing individual accounts to schedule the running of cPanel controlled backups. Therefore I put together the following script that you can run via cron using PHP based on a script I found in the cpanel.net forums.
Feel free to use if your hosting provider uses cPanel.
Updated 2/17: Added SSL support to the script.
fullbackup.php
<?php// PHP script to allow periodic cPanel backups automatically.
// Based on script posted by max.hedroom in cpanel.net forums
// This script contains passwords. KEEP ACCESS TO THIS FILE SECURE!
// ********* THE FOLLOWING ITEMS NEED TO BE CONFIGURED *********
// Info required for cPanel access
$cpuser = “username“; // Username used to login to CPanel
$cppass = “password“; // Password used to login to CPanel
$domain = “example.com“; // Domain name where CPanel is run
$skin = “monsoon“; // Set to cPanel skin you use (script won’t work if it doesn’t match)
// Info required for FTP host
$ftpuser = “ftpusername“; // Username for FTP account
$ftppass = “ftppassword“; // Password for FTP account
$ftphost = “ftp.example.com“; // Full hostname or IP address for FTP host
$ftpmode = “ftp“; // FTP mode (”ftp” for active, “passiveftp” for passive)
// Notification information
$notifyemail = “you@example.com“; // Email address to send results
// Secure or non-secure mode
$secure = 0; // Set to 1 for SSL (requires SSL support), otherwise will use standard HTTP
// Set to 1 to have web page result appear in your cron log
$debug = 0;
// *********** NO CONFIGURATION ITEMS BELOW THIS LINE *********
if ($secure) {
$url = “ssl://“.$domain;
$port = 2083;
} else {
$url = $domain;
$port = 2082;
}
$socket = fsockopen($url,$port);
if (!$socket) { echo “Failed to open socket connection… Bailing out!\n“; exit; }
// Encode authentication string
$authstr = $cpuser.”:“.$cppass;
$pass = base64_encode($authstr);
$params = “dest=$ftpmode&email=$notifyemail&server=$ftphost&user=$ftpuser&pass=$ftppass&submit=Generate Backup“;
// Make POST to cPanel
fputs($socket,”POST /frontend/“.$skin.”/backup/dofullbackup.html?“.$params.” HTTP/1.0\r\n“);
fputs($socket,”Host: $domain\r\n“);
fputs($socket,”Authorization: Basic $pass\r\n“);
fputs($socket,”Connection: Close\r\n“);
fputs($socket,”\r\n“);
// Grab response even if we don’t do anything with it.
while (!feof($socket)) {
$response = fgets($socket,4096);
if ($debug) echo $response;
}
fclose($socket);
?>