How to Use rsync for Remote /home Backups and Advanced Backup Handling in DirectAdmin

1. Using `rsync` to Back Up `/home` to a Remote Server

As servers grow and store more data, traditional tar.gz backups become slower. For servers where most data resides in public_html or email folders, using rsync for the entire /home directory is a highly efficient alternative.

Important: You must restore DirectAdmin accounts first. After DA restores users, you can rsync the data back. If needed, run the DA restore twice for updated metadata.

When creating DA backups, deselect the following in Step 4:

Domains Directory
E-Mail Data

These items are stored in /home and will be handled by rsync instead.

1.1 Example rsync Script for Remote Backup

#!/bin/bash
BACKUP_HOST="remote.hostname.com"
BACKUP_USER=`hostname -s`
BACKUP_SOURCE="/home"
BACKUP_DESTINATION="/home/$BACKUP_USER/users"

ionice -c3 nice -n 19 rsync -q -a --delete -e ssh $BACKUP_SOURCE \
$BACKUP_USER@$BACKUP_HOST:$BACKUP_DESTINATION >/var/log/backup.log 2>&1

After restoring DA accounts:

rsync the data back
adjust /home/USERNAME/domains to /home/USERNAME if needed

To include webmail settings:

/var/www/html/squirrelmail/data
/var/www/html/webmail/tmp

2. Keeping Both Local and Remote Backups

DirectAdmin allows either local OR remote FTP backups per job. To keep both, create one FTP backup job and use user_backup_post.sh to copy the file locally before it is removed.

2.1 Script for Admin‑Only Local Copy

#!/bin/sh
RESELLER=admin
SAVE_PATH=/home/${RESELLER}/admin_backups

BACKUP_PATH=$(echo $file | cut -d/ -f1,2,3,4)
REQUIRED_PATH=/home/tmp/${RESELLER}.

if [[ "$BACKUP_PATH" == ${REQUIRED_PATH}* ]]; then
      NEW_FILE=${SAVE_PATH}/`echo $file | cut -d/ -f6`
      cp -fp $file ${NEW_FILE}
fi
exit 0;

2.2 Script for All Resellers

#!/bin/sh
RESELLER=$reseller
SAVE_PATH=/home/${RESELLER}/user_backups

BACKUP_PATH=`echo $file | cut -d/ -f1,2,3,4`
REQUIRED_PATH=/home/tmp/

if [[ "$BACKUP_PATH" == ${REQUIRED_PATH}* ]]; then
      NEW_FILE=${SAVE_PATH}/`echo $file | cut -d/ -f6`
      cp -fp $file ${NEW_FILE}
fi
exit 0;

Make executable:

chmod 755 /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/custom/user_backup_post.sh

3. Extracting and Repacking a User Backup File

If a tar.gz backup is corrupted, DirectAdmin may fail to restore it. You can extract and re‑compress it manually.

3.1 Extract

cd /home/admin/admin_backups
cp user.admin.bob.tar.gz user.admin.bob.tar.gz.backup
mkdir temp
cd temp
tar xvzf ../user.admin.bob.tar.gz

3.2 Repack

cd /home/admin/admin_backups/temp
tar cvzf ../user.admin.bob.tar.gz *

4. Working with `tar.zst` Files

4.1 Create

tar --preserve-permissions --use-compress-program /usr/local/bin/zstdmt \
-cf backup.tar.zst backup

4.2 Extract

tar --preserve-permissions --use-compress-program /usr/local/bin/zstdmt \
-xf backup.tar.zst

5. mysqldump Timeout

DirectAdmin includes:

database_dump_timeout=14400

To disable timeout:

/usr/local/directadmin/directadmin set database_dump_timeout 0

6. “MySQL Server Has Gone Away” During Restore

Possible causes:

wait_timeout too low
MySQL restarted mid‑restore
max_allowed_packet too small

Increase packet size:

max_allowed_packet=20M

7. Backup Abort (2): Hard Link Found

This occurs when backup_hard_link_check=1 detects a hard link under the user’s home directory.

To disable the check:

backup_hard_link_check=0

Ensure:

strict_backup_permissions=1

Optional optimization:

direct_imap_backup=1

Ignore unreadable files:

extra_backup_option=--warning=no-file-removed --warning=no-file-changed

8. Common FTP Backup Errors

8.1 `curl: (55) Send failure: Connection reset by peer`

FTP user over quota
Firewall blocking ports 20, 21, 35000–35999

8.2 `curl: (55) SSL_write() returned SYSCALL`

Client does not support required SSL protocol.

8.3 `curl: (55) Send failure: Connection timed out`

Likely firewall issue.

8.4 `curl: (7) Failed to connect: Connection refused`

FTP server not accepting connections.