Defining How the Backup Process Is Performed

You can specify the following options for the backup operation:

1. Do not perform the backup if your server does not have specified free disk space.
2. Do not perform the backup if your server does not have enough free disk space to store the backup content.
3. Temporarily suspend websites during backup.
4. Configure the backup utility to include more details in backup reports.

Specifying disk space requirements for the backup

You can prevent the start of the backup operation if your server has not enough disk space to complete it. To set the free disk space requirements, change the parameters in the file $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/share/pmmcli/pmmcli-rc.

There are two ways to prevent the start of the backup operation:

• Specify minimal free disk space on your server.
  If the server does not have the specified disk space, Plesk will not start the backup operation. Set the minimal free disk space in MB by changing the value of the FREE_DISK_SPACE parameter. For example, to prevent the backup if free disk space on the server is less than 100 MB, edit the line in the following way:

FREE_DISK_SPACE 100

• Restrict the backup if your server does not have enough free disk space to store the backup content. If this option is turned on, Plesk calculates the future backup size and compares it with the free disk space on the server. If there is not enough disk space, Plesk will not start the backup operation. Note that this option can significantly increase the backup time.
  To turn this option on, set the CHECK_BACKUP_DISK_SPACE to 1. To turn this option off, set the parameter to 0:

CHECK_BACKUP_DISK_SPACE 0

Suspending websites

If your backup will include websites, we recommend that you suspend them during the backup process by using the --suspend option of the backup utility. This will help you avoid possible errors that may be caused by changes made to the site configuration or content during the backup.

The suspension is made as short as possible: each site is suspended only for the time it is being backed up: The site is started automatically as soon as its data are processed.

Defining level of backup verbosity

There are three levels of backup verbosity:

• Low: backup utility writes into a log and displays only general errors, such as syntax errors (no or wrong command specified, invalid input parameters), runtime errors, unhandled exceptions, low disk space for backup and so on.
• Medium: backup utility writes into a log and displays general errors and information on backup stages.
• High: backup utility writes into a log and displays general errors, information on backup stages, debug information and messages sent to and received from the backup utility.

The verbose mode of the backup process is defined by the -v option:

To run a task on creating a complete server backup with a maximum level of verbosity:

pleskbackup server -vvvvv