Backups, snapshots and more
Back up, snapshot, resize, reinstall or rescue your VPS, set its firewall and reverse DNS, and watch its traffic.
Under its details, each VPS has tabs for everything you do with it after it is made. Every change that touches the disk runs as a task: it appears under Recent tasks and the page updates by itself until it is done.
Where: HF Cloud (https://cld.yourdomain.com) › My VPS › open a VPS
Backups
Turn on daily backups (a paid extra, shown with its monthly price) and the whole disk is copied every day to storage away from the VPS's server and kept for the number of days your plan says. Back up now makes one at once.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Download | Saves the copy (a .qcow2 disk image) to your computer. |
| Restore | Puts the copy back in place of the disk. Everything since then is lost and the VPS's snapshots are deleted — it asks first. |
Turn off stops new backups; the copies made so far are kept until they expire.
Snapshots
A snapshot keeps the disk (and the memory, when the VPS runs) as it is now, on the VPS's server. Give it a name or leave it empty, and click Take snapshot. Your plan allows a number of them; delete one to take another. Revert goes back to a snapshot (everything since is lost), Delete removes it. Both ask first.
Tip: take a snapshot before an upgrade, then delete it once all is well. For copies that survive the server itself, use backups.
Resize
Lists the bigger plans with their monthly price and what changing now costs (the difference for the rest of this
month). Resize asks first, then restarts the VPS with the new memory and vCPUs. The disk grows and never shrinks.
Delete the VPS's snapshots before resizing. The file system inside grows on the next start of most images; if not,
grow the partition with growpart and resize2fs.
Reinstall
Erases the disk and installs a fresh Image (the IP addresses stay; snapshots are deleted). Give a new Root password (empty: one is made and shown once) and/or an SSH key, then type the VPS's host name to confirm and click Reinstall.
Rescue
Start rescue mode restarts the VPS into a separate rescue system with your VPS's disk attached as a second disk
(/dev/vdb), and shows a temporary root password once. Sign in over SSH or the Console, then mount the disk
(for example mount /dev/vdb1 /mnt) to repair it or copy files off. Leave rescue mode restarts the VPS from its
own disk. Backups and snapshots wait until you leave.
Note: don't restart the rescue system from inside it: use Leave rescue mode, then start rescue mode again.
Firewall
Rules for traffic coming into the VPS, checked on its server before it reaches the VPS, tried from the top:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Action | Allow or Block. |
| Protocol | TCP, UDP, ICMP or Any. |
| Port or range | TCP and UDP only: 22 or 8000-8100; empty = every port. |
| From | An address or network such as 198.51.100.0/24 (IPv4 or IPv6); empty = anywhere. |
Everything else says what happens to traffic no rule matches: Allow (the default, with no rules nothing is filtered) or Block. Replies to connections the VPS made itself always come in, and so does IPv6 neighbour discovery. Save applies the rules at once, without a restart.
Warning: with Everything else set to Block, add an Allow rule for SSH (TCP 22) first, or you can only reach the VPS through the console.
Usage
This month's traffic (received and sent) against the plan's allowance, and what happens over it: either the speed is capped until the month ends, or each GB over costs the price shown, billed when the month ends (the estimate so far is shown).
Reverse DNS
Sets the name each IP address reports back (PTR record), for example for a mail server. The name must point to the address first (an A record for IPv4, AAAA for IPv6). Shown when your host has set up reverse DNS.