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Managed Backups: Overview & Configuration

Managed Backups provide a complete, file-level copy of your VPS data. Unlike Snapshots (which image the whole disk), Managed Backups allow you to request the restoration of specific files or folders.

Availability:
This service is currently available exclusively for Linux VPSs.

1. Enabling Managed Backups

You can enable this service during the initial order of your VPS, or activate it later for an existing server.

For Existing Servers

  1. Log in to the MyTilaa Dashboard and go to your VPS.
  2. Scroll down to the Software section.
  3. Locate Managed back-up and click Details.
  4. Click to Enable the service.
[Image of Software section in dashboard] Software section dashboard

Once enabled, our support team receives a notification to configure the backup agent on your server.

Crucial Requirement: Root Password
For the initial configuration, our automated system needs to log in once.
Ensure your root password matches the initial password shown in the dashboard. If you have changed your root password manually, please temporarily reset it or provide the new credentials to support so we can install the backup agent.

2. Retention & Location

We use a retention policy designed to let you go back in time without storing unnecessary data. All backups are stored in an off-site datacenter (e.g., if your VPS is in Haarlem, backups are stored in Amsterdam) for geo-redundancy.

Backup Interval:

  • Last 24 hours: 1 backup every 4 hours (6 backups total).
  • Last 7 days: 1 backup per day.
  • Last 30 days: 1 backup per week.

Data older than one month is automatically removed.

What is excluded?

For security and compliance reasons (GDPR), we only backup the local VPS filesystem. External mounted drives (such as NFS mounts or Big Disks) are not included in the backup.

3. How to Restore Files

Restoring files is done via a service request to ensure data integrity.

  1. Send an email to support@tilaa.com.
  2. Include the Server ID.
  3. Specify the full path of the file/folder you need restored (e.g., /var/www/html/index.php).
  4. Specify the date/time you want to restore from.

4. Security & Technical Implementation

To back up all your files, the backup agent requires root privileges (read-access to the entire filesystem).

The Setup Process

  1. Initial Access: We need password-based SSH access as root to perform the initial setup.
  2. Key Installation: During setup, we install a specific RSA public key and a wrapper script on your server.
  3. Lockdown: Once the key is installed, all future connections are authenticated via this key. The key is restricted to only execute rsync commands from our specific backup server IP.
Security Recommendation:
Once Tilaa has confirmed the backup service is active, we strongly advise disabling password authentication for root to prevent brute-force attacks.

Edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config: 
PermitRootLogin without-password
This allows our backup key to work, while blocking password login attempts.