[TUTO] Backing up Plesk hosting on your home NAS

Data loss can have disastrous consequences. That's why it's essential for any company or individual to control and secure their data. And there's nothing better than backing them up on your own premises.

Plesk, LRob's web hosting management panel, offers robust solutions for automating backups and guaranteeing data protection. This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to back up your Plesk-hosted data to a home or office NAS (Network Attached Storage).

As equipment can vary, the aim will be to give you the general principles concerning your NAS and network configuration, but to be very precise about the configuration at Plesk level.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have :

• A NAS with FTP support.
• Ideally an operator that allows you to have a fixed public IP address (for Orange you need Orange Pro with the free fixed IP option active, for Free you need to request a fullstack IP, for SFR and Bouygues I have no information).
• If you don't have a fixed IP, you'll need to set up a DynDNS service. DynDNS example.
• Some basic network concepts: local IP, public IP, network port, domain name.

The basics: creating FTP access and port forwarding via NAT

To transfer your backups from Plesk to a NAS, you'll need to create an FTP access and make it accessible over the Internet.

A few basic notions: Each service on a server is said to "listen" on a "port", which allows you to direct (via a NAT rule on your router) Internet traffic destined for one service rather than another. The challenge is to redirect traffic destined for FTP ports to your NAS on your local network.

Create FTP access

How to create FTP access depends on your NAS model. If necessary, refer to your NAS's official documentation.

For ports, the default control port is 21. For passive FTP (recommended), the default port range is 49152-65534.

Here's a general procedure for Synology and QNAP NAS, two popular brands.

For a Synology NAS :

Official Synology Doc

1. Connect to the DSM interface on your NAS.
2. Go to "Control Panel" > "File Services".
3. Activate FTP service and configure settings (default port: 21).
4. Create a user with FTP access permissions.

For a QNAP NAS :

Official QNAP doc

1. Log in to the management interface of your QNAP NAS.
2. Go to "Control Panel" > "Applications" > "FTP Server Station".
3. Activate the FTP server and configure the necessary settings.
4. Create a user with appropriate FTP permissions.

Port forwarding

The port forwarding procedure varies according to your operator or router. Here are the general steps:

1. Access your router's administration interface. The most common default URLs are: http://192.168.1.1 http://192.168.0.1 http://192.168.1.254 http://192.168.0.254
2. Make sure you have set a static IP lease for your NAS so that its local IP always remains the same.
3. Find the port forwarding section (often in "Advanced" or "NAT/PAT").
4. Add a new TCP rule to redirect port 21 (or the port configured for FTP) to the local IP address of your NAS.
5. Add a new TCP rule to redirect port range 49152-65534 to the local IP of your NAS.
6. Save changes.

Good to know:

• On recent Orange Liveboxes, ports 50222 and 50805 are unavailable. So you'll need to do three port forwarding ranges: 49152-50221, 5023-50804, 50806-65534. Doc Orange.

Point a domain name to the IP or use DynDNS

To facilitate access to your NAS, you can use your domain name to point to your fixed IP.

If you have a fixed IP, go to https://ip.lafibre.info to get to know her.

Then configure a sub-domain to point to your fixed IPv4. Specifically, you need to create an "A" record in your DNS manager (if you're hosted by LRob, go to your Plesk control panel, in the desired domain, heading "Hosting and DNS" then "DNS") to point to your fixed public IP address.

For example: office A 128.42.16.XXX

If you're using DynDNS, then you can make a CNAME instead.

For example: office CNAME monsuperdyndns.dyndns.fr

Set up automated backup via Plesk

Finally, configure automated backups in Plesk.

Start by logging on to your Plesk control panel.

If you are a reseller (offering multiple domains), go to Tools & Utilities > Backup Manager

If you only have one domain, go to the relevant domain page, then in the right-hand pane choose "Backup and restore".

Click on "Remote storage settings".

Then click on "FTP(S)".

Enter your FTP access information :

Then validate with "Apply" (or "OK", which will return you to the previous page after applying the change). Access will be tested. If the service is not correctly accessible from the outside, or if your user does not have sufficient permissions, then you will get an error and need to correct your configuration. For passive mode and FTPS, this must of course be configured beforehand in your NAS settings.

Return to the Backup Manager page, but this time choose "Schedule".

Set up your backup, preferably at night, incrementally, with a full one every month. The maximum number of backups should not exceed 12. Make sure you choose a value that won't fill your NAS completely.

Confirm with OK.

Check for backups the next day. If everything is OK, after a while it should look like this screen:

By following these steps, you will have put in place a robust solution for backing up your Plesk-hosted data to your NAS, ensuring its security and availability should the need arise.

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