Backups

Automatic pg_dump backups ship with the module. Customers can download and restore them, and on dedicated plans they can send copies offsite to an S3-compatible bucket — including one on ImpulseObjects, if you also run it.

1. What’s enabled by default

Every active database is backed up automatically each time the hourly usage task runs (on ImpulseCore’s cron runner). The backup is a pg_dump custom-format dump, gzipped, taken through the server’s Admin Proxy and stored on the database server under /var/backups/impulsepostgres/<service_id>/, named <db_name>_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS>.sql.gz. Retention is per plan (Backup Retention, in days); the same task removes expired backups — the database record, the file, and any offsite copy.

Problems are emailed to you, controlled under Settings → Quotas & Limits → Admin Notifications (both on by default): Usage cron errors when a run of the task — backups included — finished with errors, and Backup failure when an offsite upload failed. Offsite failures are also written to the WHMCS Activity Log. The Dashboard’s Backups tile counts the backups currently held.

Backups are logical dumps. There is no continuous WAL archiving, so point-in-time recovery isn’t available — a restore returns the database to the moment a backup was taken.

2. Offsite copies to S3-compatible storage

On dedicated plans, customers can connect an Offsite Backup Destination from the Backups & Migration tab of their service. After every backup, WHMCS downloads the dump through the Admin Proxy and uploads it to the customer’s bucket.

Connect a destination

1. In the client area, open the database service → Backups & Migration → Offsite Backup Destination.
2. Choose Use Custom S3-Compatible Storage and pick a provider preset — S3-compatible, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi or Cloudflare R2.
3. Fill in the endpoint, bucket, optional prefix, access key and secret, and choose whether to Keep local copies on the database server.
4. Click Test & Connect. A test upload runs before the destination is saved.

The backup list then shows where each backup lives: Local, Local + offsite, or Offsite only.

Restore from a backup

Customers restore from the Available Backups list on the same tab: Restore kills active connections and replaces the database with the chosen backup, after the customer types the database name to confirm. Restores run through the Admin Proxy. Only backups that still have a local copy can be restored or downloaded here; an Offsite only backup has to be fetched from the bucket. There is no admin-side restore button.

3. ImpulseObjects offsite backups

If you also run the ImpulseObjects module on the same WHMCS instance, a customer who has an object-storage service can pick one of their own ImpulseObjects buckets as the offsite destination — services in the same project are listed first, and no keys need to be copied by hand. Changing the bucket runs a test upload before it’s saved; existing backup files stay where they are.

Customer-owned destinations

Offsite destinations are set per service by the customer and point at their own bucket — there is no install-wide backup target. The ImpulseObjects option only appears when the customer has an ImpulseObjects service on the same WHMCS.

4. What customers see

The Backups & Migration tab on the client area service page shows the backup configuration (retention), a Backup Now button for an on-demand backup, the offsite destination (dedicated plans), the list of available backups with Download and Restore, a restore history, and Export & Import tools for moving data in and out.