Setting up Automatic Backups in cPanel

Using the script provided below you will be able to make automatic backup of your hosting account (domains and MySQL databases). This backup script includes SSL support. This is not necessary if you run the script on the server for which you are generating the backup; but the SSL support could be important if you are running the script somewhere else to connect to your cPanel hosting account.

<?php

// PHP script to allow periodic cPanel backups automatically, optionally to a remote FTP server. 
// This script contains passwords. It is important to keep access to this file secure (we would
// ask you to place it in your home directory, not public_html).  You need to create a 'backups'
// folder in your home directory ( or any other folder that you would like to store your backups in ).

// ********* THE FOLLOWING ITEMS NEED TO BE CONFIGURED ********* 
// Information required for cPanel access 

$cpuser = "username"; // Username used to login to cPanel 
$cppass = 'password'; // Password used to login to cPanel.
// You could face some issues with the "$#&/" chars in the password, so if this script does not work,
// try to change the password.
$domain = "example.com";// Your main domain name 
// Set to cPanel skin you use (script will not work if it does not match). Most people
//run the default "x" theme or "x3" theme
$skin = "x"; 

// Information required for FTP host 
$ftpuser = "ftpusername"; // Username for FTP account 
$ftppass = 'ftppassword'; // Password for FTP account
$ftphost = "ip_address"; // IP address of your hosting account 
$ftpmode = "passiveftp"; // FTP mode 

// Notification information $notifyemail = "[email protected]"; // 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 ********* 
$ftpport = "21"; 
$ftpdir = "/backups/"; // Directory where backups stored (make it in your /home/ directory). Or you can change 'backups' to the name of any other folder created for the backups; 

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&port=$ftpport&rdir=$ftpdir&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 do not do anything with it. 
while (!feof($socket)) { 
$response = fgets($socket,4096); if ($debug) echo $response; 
} 

fclose($socket); 

?>

To schedule the script to run regularly, save it as fullbackup.php in your home directory and enter a new cron job** like the following:

00 2 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/php /home/youraccount/fullbackup.php

(This will now run every Sunday night at 2:00 a.m.)

That’s it!