The Plesk backup/restore utilities allow backing up the Plesk server configuration information as well as its current content (client accounts data, domains and so forth) as they are at a certain moment in time - the moment when the backup is carried out. They also allow restoring these data at the server. This proves useful when either you need to execute a system operation, which can influence such data (for instance, upgrade the OS that Plesk is running on, or upgrade Plesk itself), or simply for the safety purposes. The two utilities that provide these functions are:

psadump - this utility is used for backing up the configuration information and the data by storing it in the dump-file

psarestore - this utility is used for restoring the backed up configuration information and data at the server from the dump-file

Executing psadump with various options and keys generates the so-called dump-file – the file that contains all of the backed-up data. The dump-file is a text file, which is a MIME document. The first segment of this file is the description of the data structure in Plesk presented in the form of an XML document. The other segments contain data of various types: tar archive, mysqldump, file, etc. – all in UUENCODE. These latter segments contain the actual server content data – the descriptions and settings for client accounts and their domains, the user databases contents and so on. This file can then be used in order to restore all of the information it contains at the Plesk server. Chapter Backing up the configuration information and the data presents the detailed instructions for executing the psadump utility, describes the available options and keys and their usage.

In order to restore the backed-up information at the Plesk server the psarestore utility is used. It is called with one required parameter – the name of the dump-file; there are also a number of options and keys that allow certain flexibility in the process of restoring the data. After the restore process is successfully completed, the Plesk server is configured the same way as the one, at which the back up was carried out, and contains all or some of the data, that was backed up. Chapter Restoring the backed up configuration information and data presents the detailed instructions for executing the psarestore utility, describes the available options and keys and their usage.