How to Restore Backups from Amazon’s S3 Cloud Storage

Using WHM’s Backup Configuration cPanel can upload its backups to Amazon’s S3 Cloud Storage and later restore backups from Amazon’s S3 as well. This is invaluable, but what if you wish to restore one of these backups? How do you restore a backup uploaded to Amazon? This article will detail how to restore a backup from Amazon’s S3 service.

Download Backup from AWS S3
Restore Home Directory Files via cPanel
Restore Backups from Amazon’s S3 via WHM

Download Backup from AWS S3

Access the AWS Management Console, click Sign In to the Console, and login
Click the Services link in the top left-hand corner
Under the Storage section, click on S3
Navigate to your backup. In this case the backup we will be restoring is in Amazon S3 > backups > weekly > 2017-06-11
Click the checkbox next to the backup you wish to download
Click the Download button, and save the backup to your local computer

Restore Home Directory Files via cPanel

If you only need to restore your files and not your databases, you won’t need root level access. You can restore the files from your backup right from your cPanel account. We have an article here about how to restore the files in your cPanel user’s home directory.

Restore Backups from Amazon’s S3 via WHM

Note that you will need root access in order to use these directions.

Login to WHM as root
Click on Transfers on the left-hand side
Click on Transfer or Restore a cPanel Account
In the Transfer Options, select Upload a file to restore. We are going to use the file that we downloaded from AWS S3 above
Below that, under Upload File, click on the Choose File button and select the file you saved to your computer
If the user already exists, you will need to select the option to Overwrite if the cPanel user already exists
Unless you have reasons to do so, leave the options under Migrate A Records and IP address unchanged
Finally, click the Restore button