HostAlloy.com Knowledgebase

Some people often wonder, how do I make backups of my website(s). It is actually pretty easy, easier than you think it would be. We are going to walk you through how to generate and download a cPanel backup.

1. First, login to your cPanel account.

2. Go to the “Files” section of your cPanel.

3. Click the “Backups” option under this section.

4. Specify which kind of backup you want to generate and download, if you want the entire account pick the first option, “Download or Generate a full web site backup”, otherwise you can specify certain databases and files.

5. Pick the backup destination, usually “Home”, and specify the email you want to be notified when the backup is complete.

6. Once the backup has been generated, login to your cPanel or FTP account and download the backup in the home directory.

7. Repeat this process as needed (Recommended every day)

One of the most used tools in your web hosting package is MySQL databases. MySQL databases store data from your web sites, and PHP scripts and is very important for running a web site. Sometimes when you are trying to install a PHP script, you are required to create a MySQL database and a MySQL username/password. We are going to walk you through this process.

1. First, login to your cPanel account.

2. Scroll down to the “Databases” section of your cPanel account.

3. Click on the option “MySQL Databases”

4. The first option you should see is “Create a Database” . Put the name you would like in the text box and hit create.

5. Now scroll down to the section MySQL users, and the option to “Add new user”. Type your desired username in the box, and enter your desired password in the password box (We strongly recommend using the password generator option so that your password is very secure and cannot be easily guessed or hacked, however if you don’t use the password generator be sure to use a very secure password). Now click the “Create User” button.

6. Now you need to add permissions to the new user account. Go down to the option “Add user to database”. Pick the MySQL database you created, and the user you made from the drop down boxes and click the “Add” button.

7. You are done creating and adding user permissions to your MySQL database. Remember that when you are inputting your MySQL username and database name in configuration options in PHP scripts, you use the format “cpanelusername_databasename” and “cpanelusername_username”, where you replace cpanelusername with your cPanel username and you replace databasename with the database name and username with the MySQL username.

I know some people are thinking when they hear; “Just change your name servers to ns1.hostalloy.com ns2.hostalloy.com and then your website will work,” what is this person talking about? Well, I’ve got good news, it’s not as hard as it sounds, I’m going to walk you through how to change your name servers at your domain registrar. We use Name.com, so this tutorial will be based upon their site layout and services. Of course, if you don’t use Name.com the process will be a little different, but no worries it will be similiar.

This is the process:

1. Login to your account at your domain registrar.

2. Click on the domain that you want to manage.

3.  You should see something on the domain management page such as “Edit Name Servers”, or “Manage DNS Servers”, click that.

4. Remove your old DNS name servers that you see on this page.

5. Add an entry for ns1.hostalloy.com

6. Add an entry for ns2.hostalloy.com

7. If there is a button such as “Save”, click it.

8. Your done, usually these changes are instant, but sometimes it can take up to 24 hours for your site to update.