WHM/cPanel Users - Need some assistance BACKUPS

I need some assistance from WHM/cPanel users on backups/restores

Like ?

Whats the question?

Sorry, I need to restore the home directory files/database of a user on WHM.

We have a full backup that can be used.  However, WHM seems to indicate to use it, we would have to remove the user.  I don't want to do that.

The Backup/Backup Wizard seems to work from individual backups of the home directory which we don't have.  Reading a tutorial over at cPanel forums would seem to indicate that we can restore from a full if we extract it locally first.  However, how would that work?

I was going to try to do a manual restore but think that is going to be too much of a problem since there are just too many tables to worry about having been changed. 

I have restored the database to a new database and reupped the photos that were deleted so I may just point Dolphin to the restored database and see what happens.

By the way, I can use my voice communicator in US and Canada.

And if you want to get your hands dirty, I can provide login credentials.

This is f**king BS.  All these bloody control panels do is get in the way.  If his was my server, all I would have to do is upload the tarball that had been created with -p to store the permissions, untar the thing, restore the database and the site would be back up and running like it was before the mess.  I guess I am going to need to upload the files by FTP and then go through the process of running all the chmods to make sure the permissions are correct.

If I make sure to move the fullbackup; currently it is sitting in the home of the cPanel user, I assume it needs to be in /home of the server, delete the user and then restore from the full backup, will that do what I need done?

Forget these WHM/cPanel crap backups.  When I get the site restored I will setup a cron job to tarball the Dolphin files on a regular basis.

Another thing about cPanel installs that makes them hard to work with.  They set the damn site up as /public_html and set the default domain's root pointing to that directory.  What this means is that people end up installing Dolphin in that root.  Then if they want to install something else, it gets mashed into the directory structure of Dolphin, making it a nightmare to work with.

cPanel should make it easy to set the root of the domain for the user.  That way, you can install Dolphin in a directory under /public_html and anything else would get its own directory.  That is the way I set up my server.  If this had been set up like that; then I could rename the current Dolphin directory, and restore the files.  The way cPanel does it makes it difficult, I have to overwrite files and can not go back.

Since I do have access to the WHM; I may change the document root for the domain and create a new directory.  Or I could create a new directory and use a .htaccess redirect to point to the new directory.  I may may do the redirect since it is the easiest. 

Yes, I am a bit stressed out.  Lack of sleep.

I think my idea of restoring the old site into a new directory and then doing a redirect for the domain to that directory might be the best approach.  I have the full backup untared on my computer.  I can create a zip and upload it and just fix the permissions using chmod and if the user:owner is incorrect, chown.

We got it all sorted out...  

Thanks so much for helping out.  I am weak as a kitten on WHM/cPanel but I am fast cutting my teeth.  I need to go write up a review for you.