Schedule server backups with DirectAdmin Admin Backup/Transfer

As a DirectAdmin administrator, Admin Backup/Transfer is your main tool for backing up every account on the server and for moving accounts to another DirectAdmin server. Backups are standard DirectAdmin user archives, so users can also restore them themselves.

Before you start

• Admin level access (switch with the level selector in the top bar).
• A backup destination: a separate disk or mount point, or an FTP/FTPS server off the machine. Storing backups only on the same disk does not protect against disk failure.
• Enough free space for at least one full backup cycle.

Create a scheduled backup

1. Go to Admin Tools → Admin Backup/Transfer.
2. Click Create Backup (or Schedule).
3. Step 1 – Who: choose All Users, All users except selected, or Selected users, or users of a specific reseller.
4. Step 2 – When: choose Now or Cron schedule, for example minute 0, hour 2, every day.
5. Step 3 – Where: choose Local with a path such as /home/admin/admin_backups, or FTP with host, user, password, remote path, port and Secure FTP enabled.
6. Tick Append to path with Day of Week or Date to keep several versions instead of overwriting.
7. Step 4 – What: choose All Data or select items (for example skip email data for a lighter job).
8. Click Schedule.

Run a backup now

On the schedule list, click Run Now next to a job, or create a one-time backup with Now in step 2. Progress and errors appear in the admin Message System.

Restore accounts

1. Go to Admin Tools → Admin Backup/Transfer and click Restore Backup.
2. Choose the source: local path or FTP, and click Update Files to list available archives.
3. Choose the IP: Use the IP stored in the backup (same server) or Select IP from list (new server).
4. Tick the user archives to restore and click Restore.

If a user already exists, DirectAdmin merges the backup into the existing account. Delete the user first if you want a clean restore.

Transfer users to another server

1. On the old server, create a backup of the selected users to the new server via FTP, or copy archives with rsync.
2. On the new server, restore with Select IP from list so accounts get the new server IP.
3. Update DNS: if both servers run DNS, the restored zones already point to the new IP; otherwise update records at the external DNS provider.

Migrating from cPanel needs a conversion step; see migrate accounts from cPanel to DirectAdmin.

Troubleshooting

• FTP upload fails: test the FTP credentials and passive mode; check the remote disk space.
• Backups fill the disk: enable date-based paths with a cleanup cron, or switch to remote storage.
• Restore says "User exists" or "Domain exists": remove the conflicting account or domain first.
• Slow backups: exclude large email data, run at night and use zstd compression (default in current DirectAdmin).

Next steps

• User-level backups in DirectAdmin.
• Off-site VPS backups with rsync and restic.
• Update server software with CustomBuild.