BackupWall glossary

Backup terms

• Account: one hosting account (a cPanel user, a DirectAdmin user, a Plesk subscription) or, on a server with no panel, a first-level folder in /home. A Directory job treats each path as one account.
• Job: a saved definition of what to back up, where to send it and whether to encrypt it.
• Schedule: when a job runs (Every hour, Daily, Weekly or Monthly), whether Incremental or Full, and how many points to keep.
• Backup point: one run's restorable snapshot of every account it covered. Also called a snapshot. A point that covered only some accounts, or finished with problems, is Partial.
• Incremental / Full: Incremental looks only at files the file watcher flagged; Full checks every file against the last backup. Neither re-reads unchanged data.
• Deduplication: storing identical data once, however many points or accounts reference it.
• Chunk, object, pack: large files are cut into chunks; each stored piece is an object named by its hash; on remote destinations small objects are grouped into pack files of about 32 MB.
• Retention: the number of points kept per schedule. Removed points free their space at the next cleanup.
• Cleanup (garbage collection, GC): the daily job that deletes objects no live point uses. Reclaim space runs it now.
• Safety copy: an automatic backup of exactly what an overwrite restore is about to overwrite, so the restore can be undone.
• Verify now: a check that every object of a point still exists on the destination.
• Restore check: the weekly job that restores a random sample into a scratch folder and compares it.
• Rescan destination: reads a destination and imports backup points the database does not know, marked Imported.

Encryption and recovery terms

• Encrypt backup data: the per-job switch that seals backup contents with AES-256-GCM before upload.
• Master key: the key in /etc/backupwall/backupwall.env from which all other keys derive. The only key to encrypted backups and saved destination passwords.
• Disaster Recovery (DR): the scheduled export of BackupWall's database and master key as a passphrase-sealed bundle.
• DR bundle / .bwdr: that sealed file, stored on a destination under dr/<server-id>/.
• bw-dr-restore: the command that opens a DR bundle and restores BackupWall's own state on a new server.
• bw-extract: a read-only tool that reads a destination and writes plain files without BackupWall.

Migration terms

• Peer: another BackupWall server you linked with a peer token.
• Peer token: a one-time secret minted on the target (Settings → Peering) that lets a source push migrations to it.
• Direct push / Seed: the two transfer modes of a migration. Direct push sends data over the peer link; Seed reads the source's backup destination.
• Re-sync: pulls changes made since the last run.
• Finalize / final sync / cutover: the last sync, which applies deletions and switches DNS (and optionally proxies web traffic) to the target.

Licensing and update terms

• Licence key: one per server, tied to a public IPv4 address, one installation and one machine.
• Lease: a signed statement, valid 24 hours, that a server is licensed; renewed by a check-in every 6 hours.
• Licensed / Grace / Unlicensed: the three licence states. Grace is a 3-day window in which everything still works.
• Enforcement: whether BackupWall actually stops backups in the Unlicensed state. Off in the beta (observe mode).
• Fail open: a licence problem can pause backups but never blocks restores, downloads or Disaster Recovery.
• Release / build: a version such as 0.9.0-beta.1 and a build such as v278. Quote both when you report a problem.
• Policy (Off, Notify, Automatic): what the server does when an update is offered.
• Channel (Stable, Beta): which releases the licence service offers. Arrives after build v278.
• Maintenance window: the time range in which automatic updates may install. Arrives after build v278.

Panel terms

• WHM plugin / cPanel plugin: the admin console inside WHM and the end-user self-service pages in cPanel.
• Feature Manager: the WHM screen where the feature backupwall is switched on for users.
• Extra Features: where DirectAdmin shows the BackupWall plugin.
• Resource tier: Micro, Small, Standard or Large, detected from the server's CPUs and RAM.