Step-by-Step Guide to Deleting WHM Backups using PuTTY

Deleting backup files from the /backup directory on a VPS server through the WHM Control Panel is a simple process when using an SSH client such as PuTTY. This task is often necessary when utilizing a VPS server. To successfully delete the server backups in WHM or cPanel, it is important to use the appropriate commands. In this article, we will delve into the process of deleting the WHM Weekly/Monthly backups.

Recently, I was searching for information on how to delete the /backup folder backups from a WHM server or cPanel. Despite searching for 30 minutes, I was unable to find a satisfactory solution for my issue of limited server space. Upon examining my WHM Control Panel, I realized that I had only 10% of my 400 GB SSD space remaining.

Thus, the question arises, how can we delete the backups for all the clients and customers on the server? I investigated the issue and was unable to find a solution.

If you are looking to delete backup files from the /backup folder or the sda2 and sda3 partitions in WHM, follow these steps:

Download an SSH client, such as PuTTY. This will allow you to access your server through the SSH client.

Connect to the WHM Server using PuTTY

The following steps outline how to connect to the WHM server using PuTTY:

a. Install PuTTY and launch it.

b. Enter the hostname or IP address of your server and click "Open" to start the connection. You can keep the default options. If this is the first time connecting to the server, you will need to accept its SSH certificate.

c. Enter either "root" (if you have root access to your server) or your cPanel username.

d. Enter your password.

After logging in to your server, you can now check the disk availability in on your server using the command 

# df -h

The “df” command displays the information of device name, total blocks, total disk space, used disk space, available disk space and mount points on a file system and the df command provides an option to display sizes in Human Readable formats by using '-h' (prints the results in human-readable format (e.g., 1K 2M 3G)).