Saving all server config values (RESOLVED)
Hi, I am shutting down my server for a few months so i can pay some other bills and be able to afford gifts for Christmas. I will shut it down mid november and restart it again probably in Feb or March 2026. I also am shutting it down to give cPanel and others time to figure out what is going to happen with configserver firewall. I need a break from coding anyway and since my server OS needs to be upgraded to Almalinux 9 and i have to zap the server to do that, i feel i might as well take this time to do other things.
What i need to know is what exactly do i need to backup in order to set all of my security settings back again. This includes everything config wize on the server.
I am running Almalinux 8 latest version if cpanel and whm.
I already know i need to save host access to my private ip, that is done
I also understand that some addon modules may not work with Almalinux 9
I have also gone into the backup dir and done the following
tar -cvzf systemarchive_10302025.tar.gz 2025-10-30
downloaded transports.db
I hope that backup and transport db has everything i need regardless of add on modules. Do i need to make any screen prints of config pages in WHM as a plan B?
What im thinking is that when i am ready all i need to do is look for the config files and that should be the information i need, correct?
Is the backup download all i need for the whole server?
Thanks :)
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Hey there! I'm not sure what "systemarchive" or "transports.db" are exactly, as those aren't things that are created as part of the standard WHM-level backup tools.
A typical backup structure would look like this, for the "weekly" backup folder for this week:
[root@host 2025-10-26]# ll
total 16K
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 .
drwx--x--x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:06 ..
drwx--x--x 2 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:05 accounts
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 systemThe "account" directory would have all the cPanel account data necessary to restore the account.
"system" is broken up into two areas - dirs and files:
[root@host 2025-10-26]# cd system/
[root@host system]# ll
total 16K
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 .
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 ..
drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 dirs
drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 files[root@host dirs]# ll
total 118M
drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 .
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 30K Oct 26 02:00 _etc_cpanel.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 183K Oct 26 02:00 _etc_mail.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 1.4K Oct 26 02:00 _etc_pki_tls_certs.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 2.4K Oct 26 02:00 _etc_proftpd.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 2.6K Oct 26 02:00 _etc_ssl.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 624 Oct 26 02:00 _etc_valiases.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 345 Oct 26 02:00 _etc_vdomainaliases.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 531 Oct 26 02:00 _etc_vfilters.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 8.4M Oct 26 02:00 _usr_local_cpanel_3rdparty_mailman.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 35M Oct 26 02:00 _var_cpanel.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 74M Oct 26 02:00 _var_lib_rpm.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 13K Oct 26 02:00 _var_named.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 1.2K Oct 26 02:00 _var_spool_cron.tar.gz[root@host dirs]# cd ../files/
[root@host files]# ll
total 184K
drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 .
drwx--x--x 4 root root 4.0K Oct 26 02:00 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 7.9K Oct 19 06:38 _etc_apache2_conf_httpd.conf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.4K Oct 3 13:12 _etc_cpanel_exim_system_filter.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 522 Oct 17 10:06 _etc_dovecot_sni.conf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19K Oct 3 13:11 _etc_exim.conf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 309 Apr 26 2023 _etc_exim.conf.local.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 964 Oct 17 05:35 _etc_exim.conf.localopts.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 83 Oct 3 13:11 _etc_exim.conf.localopts.shadow.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 313 Oct 8 12:02 _etc_fstab.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 52 Oct 8 12:35 _etc_global_spamassassin_enable.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 715 Oct 17 10:04 _etc_group.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 29 Mar 8 2022 _etc_ips.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 154 Oct 17 10:04 _etc_localdomains.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 33 Oct 25 05:44 _etc_mailips.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 35 Oct 2 10:36 _etc_manualmx.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 698 Oct 22 05:35 _etc_my.cnf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.5K Oct 17 10:04 _etc_named.conf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.3K Oct 17 10:04 _etc_passwd.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 1.4K Oct 17 05:35 _etc_proftpd.conf.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39 Dec 17 2024 _etc_remotedomains.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 37 Jan 3 2023 _etc_secondarymx.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 49 Mar 7 2021 _etc_senderverifybypasshosts.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 1.2K Oct 17 10:05 _etc_shadow.gz
-rw-r----- 1 root root 41 Mar 7 2021 _etc_spammeripblocks.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 34 May 12 13:54 _etc_spammers.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 260 Jan 17 2025 _etc_wwwacct.conf.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 82 Mar 8 2022 _root_.my.cnf.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 47K Sep 13 05:35 _var_cpanel_greylist_greylist.sqlite.gz
-rw------- 1 root root 194 Mar 8 2022 _var_cpanel_mysql_remote_profiles_profiles.json.gzSo those would include all the system configurations that cPanel & WHM back up so you could restore from them in the future.
You could always screenshot specific pages in WHM if you think that would help, although this would include all the major areas (Tweak Settings, MySQL Configurations, etc.)
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It's possible to add files and/or directories to that system backup:
https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/backup/system-backups/#custom-files1 -
Just wanted to update this, it went well, was able to backup server files successfully as well as take some screenshots as well.
@cPRrex
FYI to answer your question, systemarchive (actually systemarchive_10302025.tar.gz) was the name i assigned to the backup in the command line. :)
Resolved thanks all :)
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I'm glad to hear it went well!
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