How to remove Plesk backup files and their logs

Dmitry Bystrov

10 months ago

Question

How to remove Plesk backups?
How to remove old Plesk backup logfiles?
Backups have been removed from Plesk, but their files and logs exist on the file system. How to remove these backup files and logs?

Note: It is possible to set a period of time after which backups will be removed automatically. In addition, it is possible to limit the number of backups to store.

When a scheduled backup task is completed successfully, the corresponding log files are deleted automatically.

Removing backups existing in Plesk

In Plesk, go to Tools & Settings > Backup manager (server-wide backups) or Websites & Domains > Backup Manager (domain backups).
Choose a backup that should be deleted and click Remove. Backup files will be also removed from the system.

For Plesk on Linux
1. Connect to a Plesk server via SSH.
2. Find the backup_infoXXXX.xml file using a backup creation date:
  
  # /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/pmm-ras --get-dump-list | grep .xml:
  
  In this example, the domain level backup was created on 10.08.2019 (19.08.10):
  
  # /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/pmm-ras --get-dump-list | grep .xml:
  <message>domains/example.com/backup_info_1908101555.xml: </message>
3. Delete the backup by specifying the corresponding *.xml file. For example:
  
  # /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/pmm-ras --verbose --debug --delete-dump --dump-specification=backup_info_1908101555.xml --session-path=/var/log/plesk/PMM

For Plesk Obsidian on Windows Server
1. Connect to a Plesk server via RDP.
2. Start a command prompt as an Administrator.
3. Find the backup_infoXXXX.xml file using a backup creation date:
  
  C:> "%plesk_bin64%"pmm-ras.exe --get-dump-list | findstr .xml:
  
  In this example, the domain level backup was created on 22 July 2020:
  
  C:> "%plesk_bin64%"pmm-ras.exe --get-dump-list | findstr .xml:
  <message>backup_info_2007220826.xml: </message>
  
  If Plesk was installed into a custom location, replace C:Program Files (x86) in the command above with the custom location
4. Remove the backup by specifying the corresponding *.xml file. For example:
  
  C:> "%plesk_bin64%"pmm-ras.exe --verbose --debug --delete-dump --dump-specification=backup_info_2007220826.xml

For Plesk Onyx or earlier on Windows Server
1. Connect to a Plesk server via RDP.
2. Start a command prompt as an Administrator.
3. Find the backup_infoXXXX.xml file using a backup creation date:
  
  C:>"%plesk_bin%/pmm-ras" --get-dump-list | findstr .xml:
  
  In this example, the domain level backup was created on 10.08.2019 (19.08.10):
  
  C:>"%plesk_bin%/pmm-ras" --get-dump-list | findstr .xml:
  <message>domains/example.com/backup_info_1908101555.xml: </message>
4. Remove the backup by specifying the corresponding *.xml file. For example:
  
  C:> "%plesk_bin%pmm-ras.exe" --verbose --debug --delete-dump --dump-specification=backup_info_1908101555.xml --session-path="%plesk_dir%PMM"

Removing old backup logfiles (Linux)

Connect to a Plesk server via SSH.
Delete directories with old backup files created before a desired date from /var/log/plesk/PMM/:

# find /var/log/plesk/PMM/ -name 'backup*' -type d -ctime +XX -exec rm -rf {} +;

where XX is a number of days before…

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