Questions, answered

BackupWall is self-hosted backup, restore and migration software for cPanel & WHM, DirectAdmin, Plesk and panel-less Linux servers, sold by PortWall. It runs on your own server and writes incremental, deduplicated backups to storage you choose. It is currently in a closed beta (v0.9.0-beta.1).

No. The engine runs on your server and writes straight to your own destination. The only traffic to PortWall is a licence check-in every 6 hours and update downloads — nothing about your accounts, backups, destinations or logs.

cPanel & WHM v100 or newer, DirectAdmin and Plesk, or no panel at all. Tested on AlmaLinux 8 and 9, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, and Debian 12. Rocky, RHEL, CentOS, CloudLinux and Debian 11 are accepted by the installer but untested. Windows is not supported.

No. BackupWall backs up, restores and migrates Plesk subscriptions, but an administrator manages it from the BackupWall console on port 8087 — Plesk customers cannot restore or download for themselves. In-panel self-service is available on cPanel (WHM admin plus a cPanel user tile) and DirectAdmin (admin plus user) only.

Yes on cPanel and DirectAdmin: account owners restore and download their own backups from the plugin, and can only ever act on their own account. Every overwrite takes a safety copy first. Plesk has no customer self-service.

On Amazon S3 and S3-compatible storage (including Wasabi and Backblaze B2), Google Cloud Storage, Google Drive, OneDrive (Microsoft 365 work or school only, in beta), SFTP, and local or NFS folders.

Only if you switch on Encrypt backup data for the job — it is off by default. With it on, file contents, databases, mail, SSL private keys, password hashes and crontabs are sealed with AES-256-GCM before they leave your server. The master key stays on your server and in your own passphrase-sealed Disaster Recovery bundle; PortWall never holds it.

File and folder names, sizes, owners and dates stay readable at the destination, so treat the destination as secret storage — a private bucket or a locked-down SFTP account.

Encrypted backups can never be read again, by anyone, and saved destination passwords cannot be recovered. There is no key rotation and no reset. Set up Disaster Recovery and keep an off-server copy of the key file.

Every object is checked against its hash when it is read back. A daily integrity check confirms every stored object still exists, a weekly restore check restores a random sample into a scratch folder and compares it, and you can run Verify now on any point.

Yes. Every overwrite restore first takes a safety copy of exactly what it is about to overwrite, kept for 7 days, and Undo this restore puts it back.

Yes. bw-extract is a single Python file that reads a destination read-only and writes plain files, database dumps and mail — with the master key or a DR bundle if the job was encrypted. The storage format is documented, so there is no lock-in.

No. BackupWall is file-level: it restores accounts, not the operating system, the panel or server-wide panel settings. To rebuild a server you install the OS and panel, install BackupWall, restore its state from a Disaster Recovery bundle, then restore all accounts in one action.

Disaster Recovery exports BackupWall’s own database and master key as a passphrase-sealed bundle on a schedule. It is off until you set a passphrase, a destination and a schedule — and BackupWall never picks the passphrase for you. Without the key and database, backups cannot be read or found, so set it up before you rely on any backup.

Yes, in any direction. All six directions passed an initial run and a re-sync on accounts from small to about 1 GB, and 7 GB was tested between cPanel and DirectAdmin both ways. Both servers run BackupWall, and the target’s port 8087 must be reachable from the source.

Mail moves with the account, but mail that arrives while DNS is still moving is not handled — the cutover proxy carries web traffic only. Lower the TTLs well before cutover, stop mail on the source, or run Re-sync after DNS has moved and before you remove the source account.

BackupWall is ordered through PortWall’s billing portal at portwall.net/billing, one licence per server. It is in a closed beta and not yet listed in the portal: licence keys come with the beta invitation, and plans and prices have not been published. Ask PortWall for current terms.

A lapse or an unreachable licence service first gives a 3-day Grace with everything running. After that, new backups pause — but restoring, downloading, browsing backups and Disaster Recovery always keep working, and nothing is ever deleted.

No. During the closed beta, enforcement is off (observe mode): a missing key or lapsed licence shows a banner and logs what would be refused, and stops nothing. PortWall will tell beta testers before it is switched on.

One, tied to that server’s public IPv4 address, one installation and one machine. When the IP or hardware changes, BackupWall re-binds automatically — up to 3 re-binds per key in any 30 days. A server behind NAT is licensed to the gateway’s stable public address.

Updates are signed release files offered to licensed servers (not yum or apt packages). By default (Notify) nothing installs until an administrator approves one exact version; you can choose Automatic. The updater waits until no backup, restore or migration is running and rolls back by itself if a new version is unhealthy. Stable and Beta release channels and a maintenance window are being added after build v278.

Open a ticket in the PortWall billing portal (Support → Open New Support Ticket) or write to [email protected]; beta testers use the contact from their invitation. Send a support bundle with every report.