Full Disaster Recovery Guide for cPanel & WHM Servers

1. Overview

Warning: Only experienced system administrators should perform full disaster recovery. WebPros International, LLC does not support failed hard drives or data recovery and is not responsible for data loss.

In cases where your server’s hard drive fails or becomes unbootable, you may need to fully rebuild and restore your cPanel & WHM server.

2. Prepare to Restore Your Server

If you have recent remote backups and cannot boot the failed drive, you can proceed directly to rebuilding the server.

Warning: If you lack recent remote backups, revise your backup strategy to ensure regular off‑server backups.

If the failed drive is still bootable:

• If WHM is accessible, create a backup via Backup Configuration.
• If WHM is not accessible, run:
  

  /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/pkgacct

Transfer all backup files to a remote location before proceeding.

3. Rebuild the Server

Some hosting providers offer automated restoration or imaging. Contact your provider for available options.

Important: The replacement server must use identical software versions—MySQL/MariaDB, PHP, Apache, and extensions. Mismatched versions may cause severe errors.

Perform updates only after the restoration is complete.

4. Manually Provision a New Hard Drive

Important: Only use official OS ISO images. Third‑party images may cause system issues.

Steps:

1. Install a new primary hard drive and attach the old drive as secondary.
2. Install the operating system.
3. Install cPanel & WHM:
   

   cd /home
   curl -o latest -L https://securedownloads.cpanel.net/latest
   sh latest

5. Request a New Drive and Image

If your provider installs a new drive and attaches the old one as secondary, update cPanel using:

/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp

Or via WHM’s Upgrade to Latest Version interface.

6. Recover Your Files

If you cannot boot the failed drive and lack remote backups, proceed with file recovery.

Steps to recover data using chroot:

6.1 Mount the secondary drive

mkdir /mnt/chroot/
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/chroot/

6.2 Bind mount system filesystems

mount --bind /proc /mnt/chroot/proc
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/chroot/dev
mount --bind /sys /mnt/chroot/sys

6.3 Verify mounts

grep chroot /etc/mtab

6.4 Start a tmux session

tmux

6.5 Enter the chroot environment

chroot /mnt/chroot /bin/bash -l
export PS1="{chrooted}$PS1"

6.6 Load environment

source /etc/environment && source /etc/profile

6.7 Start required services

Start MySQL:

/usr/sbin/mysqld --daemonize --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid ${MYSQLD_OPTS}

Start dnsadmin:

/usr/local/cpanel/libexec/dnsadmin-startup --start

6.8 Back up accounts

cd /var/cpanel/users
for i in `ls -1 *`; do /scripts/pkgacct --skipdnszones $i; done

Warning: Do not use rsync to back up accounts.

6.9 Back up service configurations

cd /usr/local/cpanel
bin/cpconftool --modules=cpanel::smtp::exim,cpanel::system::backups,cpanel::system::mysql,cpanel::system::whmconf,cpanel::easy::apache,cpanel::ui::themes --backup

6.10 Transfer backups to remote storage

Use scp or rsync to copy files to a safe location.

6.11 Stop services and unmount

service mysql stop
umount {/proc,/dev,/sys}
exit

7. Restore Files to the New Server

7.1 Transfer backups to the new server

Use scp or rsync.

7.2 Restore feature lists

cd /backups
tar -xzvf _var_cpanel.tar.gz var/cpanel/features

7.3 Restore accounts

cd BACKUPDIRECTORY/TYPE/DATE/accounts/
for archive in `ls`; do /scripts/restorepkg $archive; done

7.4 Restore configuration settings

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/cpconftool --restore

7.5 Restore CloudLinux settings (if applicable)

8. Test the Server

Verify websites, applications, email, and all services to ensure the restoration is complete and functional.

9. Reconnect to a tmux Session

tmux ls
tmux a -t example

Conclusion

This disaster recovery process ensures that you can rebuild and restore a cPanel & WHM server after catastrophic hard‑drive failure. Following these steps carefully helps preserve data integrity and restore full service functionality.