Enhance Backups Running at Random Times? Here’s the Fix

Backups are crucial, but what’s even more important is having them run at the exact same time every day for easy tracking and troubleshooting. If your Enhance backups seem to have a mind of their own, this guide will show you how to tame them and get them running with military precision.

This guide assumes that you’ve already:

• Added a new ext4 backup server to your Enhance cluster.
• Assigned the backup role to it.

These steps are straightforward:

1. Click Add New Server, grab the setup code, paste it into your Ubuntu 24 server, and hit enter.
2. Once the installation is complete, go to Control Panel → Servers, open your new backup server, click Add Role, and select Backups.
3. Finally, head over to Websites, select all sites, and make sure they’re assigned to the correct backup server.

That’s it—plug and play. Now, let’s configure the timing so your backups behave predictably.

Setting Up Enhance Backup Timing

Head to Settings → Service → Backup, and follow these steps:

1. Ensure Timezone Consistency
   • The timezone should be the same across all servers.
   • Sometimes, a reboot is needed for services to recognize changes.
   • We always reboot after changing the timezone, just to be sure.
2. Configure Backup Frequency
   • For a 24-hour backup cycle, set minimum: 23 hours and maximum: 24 hours.
   • For 12-hour backups, set minimum: 11 hours and maximum: 12 hours.
   • Adjust accordingly for other frequencies.
3. Check the Last Backup Time
   Run the following command on your backup server to see when each site’s last backup was taken:

   for site in /backups/; do 
       latest_snapshot=$(ls -d "$site"/snapshot-* 2>/dev/null | sort -V | tail -n 1)
       if [[ -n "$latest_snapshot" ]]; then
           timestamp=${latest_snapshot##*-}
           timestamp=$((timestamp / 1000))
           echo "$(date -d @$timestamp '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') -- ${site##*/}"
       fi
   done | sort
   

   This gives you a sorted list of backup timestamps for each site.

4. Set the Allowed Backup Hours
   • Let’s say you want backups to start at 4 AM.
   • Check when the last backup happened (using the above command) and ensure the minimum time setting aligns with it.
   • Set Allowed Backup Hours to 4 AM – 6 AM, assuming your backups take around 2 hours.
5. If Backups Don’t Start on Time
   • We’ve noticed that manually triggering a backup for just one site can somehow kickstart all backups if they’re not running when expected.
   • This only needs to be done once—after that, backups should run like clockwork.

Fixing Backups That Run at Random Times

What if the command from step 3 gives you wildly different times for different websites?

We like to keep things precise—we know our backups start at exactly 2 AM because cPFence Owl notifies us at 2:05 AM about high load across all four of our backup servers.

If your backups are all over the place, here’s how to fix it:

1. Find the most recent backup time—let’s say it’s 7 AM, but you want backups to start at 2 AM instead.
2. Turn off backups completely using the Allowed Backup Hours setting.
3. Let your backups get hungry—deny them the ability to run for a while.
4. At exactly 2 AM, flip the switch to allow backups again.

This forces all backups to start at the same time every day from that moment forward.

With these steps, your Enhance backups will finally be predictable and reliable—no more guessing when they’ll run.

Got it set up? Time to grab a coffee and let the automation do its job.