Restoring
Restore is where a backup earns its keep. Panelica restores at every grain: a whole server, selected domains, or a single file, database or mailbox pulled out of the archive, with a safety backup taken first and conflicts handled on your terms.
Backup → Restorehttps://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8443/backup/server/restoreThe backup list
Backups group into chains: a full backup with its incrementals nested underneath, showing total size, domain count, the latest point and a chain health indicator that flags an orphaned incremental (one whose parent is gone). A flat view is available too. Each chain shows its source server, content badges (web, databases, email, SSL, DNS, cron) and a per-domain table. Backups that retention has already removed locally but still exist in remote storage appear as "remote only" with a pull-to-local action, so a wiped server can still recover.
Restore points and chains
Restoring from a chain lets you pick the restore point: the base full backup, or any incremental along the way. Choosing an incremental restores the full backup first and then applies every change up to that point, in order; the panel walks the chain for you. For files, databases and mailboxes this walk is what lets a granular restore find an item that physically lives in an ancestor backup (an unchanged mailbox is not re-dumped into every increment).
Whole, selective, or granular
Full restore returns the selected content. You choose components (web content, databases, email, DNS records, SSL) and, with the selective permission, individual domains within the backup. Granular restore (the Browse button) opens the archive without unpacking it and restores one thing at a time:
- Files: navigate the domain's tree, search across it, preview a file with a live checksum comparison against what is on disk now (identical, different, missing), and restore it as an overwrite or kept side-by-side as
.restored. - Databases: restore any single database from the backup.
- Mailboxes: restore any single mailbox, chain walk included.
Every action on a backup
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Restore | Full restore of the chosen components and domains; prompts for a restore point on a chain |
| Browse | Opens granular restore (single files, databases, mailboxes) |
| Verify | Checks a backup's integrity end to end, asking for the password on an encrypted one |
| Download | Streams the backup to you directly at any size; an encrypted backup brings its sidecar automatically |
| Upload | Restores an external .tar.zst backup you bring, with its sidecar for encrypted ones |
| Sync / Sync all | Pushes a backup (or all) to remote storage now |
| Pull to local | Fetches a remote-only backup back onto the server |
| Changed files | On an incremental, lists exactly which files were added or removed per domain |
| Delete | Removes a backup after a typed confirmation; the chain-aware Smart Delete offers consolidate, cascade or force when others depend on it |
| Delete all | Clears local backups (remote copies are untouched unless you opt in) |
Conflicts, safety and IP changes
Before a restore you can check for conflicts: domains or users that already exist, and, importantly, an IP change if the backup came from a server with a different address (the panel lists the affected domains and the DNS A-records that will need updating). Conflicts resolve as overwrite (a separate permission) or skip. Two switches guard the operation: a pre-restore safety backup (on by default, so the current state is captured before it is touched) and clean restore (which makes the document root exactly match the backup, deleting extra files, off by default).
wp-config.php, .env and the like exactly as backed up, and database and email passwords are preserved (the panel can even recover a database password from the app config if it is missing from its own records). That is what you want for a faithful restore, but it means a restore also rolls back any credential change made since the backup. Clean restore additionally deletes files not present in the backup; leave it off unless you specifically want the document root pruned.Restores run as background jobs with live progress; you can leave the page while they work. You can also upload an external .tar.zst backup to restore it, verify a backup's integrity, and download backups (encrypted ones bring their sidecar automatically).
Access
Behind the backup license feature, with granular permissions for restore, selective restore, conflict-overwrite, upload, download and delete, each grantable independently (see roles and permissions). Deletions are chain-aware: removing a backup that others depend on prompts a consolidate/cascade/force choice rather than silently orphaning a chain, and can optionally remove the remote copies too.