How to determine when backups are finished running.

The easiest way to know when backups are completed is to ensure the notifications related to backups are enabled and set to "HIGH" priority in your "Contact Manager" interface in WHM:

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Backup Delayed This option indicates that the backup process continues to run after 16 hours.

Backup Failed To Finish This option indicates that a backup failed to complete due to a cPanel user’s actions.

Backup Failure This option indicates that the backup failed to complete due to generic errors.

Backup Successful

Backup Transport Error This option indicates the system failed to transport the backup to the remote destination.
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These can be found under the "Notifications" tab in the "Contact Manager" interface in WHM.

Next, you will want to ensure that the email address listed under the "Communication Type" tab is valid, and you have access to it. If it isn't, this can be updated by clicking on the blue 'Edit' link next to the email address. We have some great information on the "Contact Manager" interface here:
Contact Manager Documentation

Another way to check if a backup is completed is to review the log via SSH as the root user. This can be accomplished by changing directories into the 'cpbackup' directory:

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cd /usr/local/cpanel/logs/cpbackup
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Then the files there can be listed or shown using the following command:
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ls -lah
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which provides an output that looks similar to this:

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[root@test cpbackup]# ls -lah
total 584K
drwx------ 2 root root 248 May 5 02:00 .
drwx--x--x 7 root root 4.0K May 5 02:00 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 42K Apr 25 02:00 1587798002.log
-rw------- 1 root root 48K Apr 26 02:00 1587884402.log
-rw------- 1 root root 42K Apr 27 02:01 1587970802.log
-rw------- 1 root root 42K Apr 28 02:00 1588057202.log
-rw------- 1 root root 48K Apr 29 02:00 1588143602.log
-rw------- 1 root root 55K Apr 30 02:00 1588230002.log
-rw------- 1 root root 63K May 1 02:00 1588316402.log
-rw------- 1 root root 55K May 2 02:00 1588402802.log
-rw------- 1 root root 63K May 3 02:00 1588489202.log
-rw------- 1 root root 55K May 4 02:00 1588575602.log
-rw------- 1 root root 55K May 5 02:00 1588662002.log
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Then we can check on the status of the latest backup (In this case, May 5th) by using the "tail" command to look at the last ten lines of that backup log:

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tail 1588662002.log
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which shows us that in this case, the backup was successfully completed:

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[root@test cpbackup]# tail 1588662002.log
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Queuing prune operation for remote destination daily backups
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] no_transport = 0 .. and queueid = TQ:TaskQueue:2173
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] leaving queue_backup_transport_item
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Scheduling backup metadata vacuum
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Queuing transport reporter
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] no_transport = 0 .. and queueid = TQ:TaskQueue:2174
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] leaving queue_backup_transport_item
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Completed at Tue May 5 02:00:28 2020
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Final state is Backup::Success (0)
[2020-05-05 02:00:28 -0500] info [backup] Sent Backup::Success notification.
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If the backup is ongoing, you may see something similar to this:

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[root@test cpbackup]# tail !$
tail example-backup-log.txt
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Performing “DigestShadow” component....
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Completed “DigestShadow” component.
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Copying shell.......
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Done
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Performing “PublicContact” component....
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Completed “PublicContact” component.
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Performing “MailLimits” component....
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Completed “MailLimits” component.
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Performing “LinkedNodes” component....
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Completed “LinkedNodes” component.
[2020-05-05 02:00:21 -0500] Creating Archive ...................................................
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Which indicates the backup process is still creating archives of an account.

Thanks for choosing cPanel!