Backups taken by FreePBX can only be restored back to a running FreePBX system. In the event of a total failure, the operating system will have to be reinstalled along with FreePBX and MySQL, and backup archives will have to be copied back onto the server before a backup can be restored.
Note
Restore to the same version of FreePBX only
Backups should always be restored to the same version of FreePBX that created the backup. A backup may be restored to a different version without error, but there is a good chance that something will be broken and cause further headaches down the line.
Every backup that is taken by FreePBX is stored in /var/lib/asterisk/backups
. Each backup schedule has its own subfolder in this directory. If a backup is being restored to a newly built system, the original subfolder and all contained backup archives must first be copied to /var/lib/asterisk/backups
before the backup will be accessible from within the FreePBX interface.