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Question Testing Disaster Recovery -- Restoring Plesk Dumps

mopanim

New Pleskian
Server operating system version
Debian 10 (buster)
Plesk version and microupdate number
Version 18.0.45 Update #2
I'm testing disaster recovery procedures.

My initial impression was that all I needed to do was rsync the /var/lib/psa/dumps directory tree (files and subdirectories) to an offsite/cloud location. For disaster recovery I would restore the files to /var/lib/psa/dumps after reinstalling Plesk. When testing this, none of the backups appear in the Plesk backup manager.

1. Is it possible to use the dumps directory tree to restore installation to a "new" server?
2. If not, what is the recommended method for disaster recovery? It is disappointing to see so little written about this in the Plesk KB.

My present course is crontab scheduling duplicate backups with pleskbackup for each customer that are rsynced to offsite storage, because this creates a single file backup. Introducing these multi-gigabyte backups into Plesk for restore does not appear to be possible from the WebGUI.
 
Thanks, that is significantly more helpful than what I was previously able to find after many searches and reading!

It is helpful for copying over from an old server, but unless there is something else I'm missing, that KB article does not directly address how to proceed with restoring from offsite backups, which is what I'm trying to prepare, test, and document.

That article does fill in significant gaps, so I'll work on it. If/when I get a working and tested process I'll post my procedure here and hope that it can be improved and helpful to others.
 
So for a disaster recovery of the whole machine I would need to setup a new host machine, install plesk with all the extensions and database-servers, firewall, etc. configured and than import a server-level backup. Is that correct?
 
So for a disaster recovery of the whole machine I would need to setup a new host machine, install plesk with all the extensions and database-servers, firewall, etc. configured and than import a server-level backup. Is that correct?
Yes.
 
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