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Escaping a provider with no export tool

General Discussion by brusselsdzire1 31 replies 6.7K views
PetraSuper

Member

network boot believer

#11

Did anyone actually get Contabo to honour an Article 15 request for structured data? I filed one in March and got back a PDF of my invoice history. Useful.

Nadia said:
Contabo's data pipeline terminates at /dev/null—no dump, no tarball, not even a stderr stream to grep

This is what finally pushed me to self-managed. At least with RackNerd or CloudCone you can yank a .sql through phpMyAdmin even if their "migration concierge" is just a cron job that emails support.

24 days quiet — guessing most of you are already out.

boot anything, anywhere, anytime
Nadia

Member

/dev/null enthusiast

#12

I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel really has no phpMyAdmin link anywhere, I checked every menu twice Has anyone here found a way to dump MySQL when you only have a web file manager and no shell I am considering just writing a PHP script and uploading it but that feels like asking for trouble

/dev/null: full of good ideas
Aleksi

Member

#13

Has anyone worked out whether Contabo's "no export" rule covers their managed databases as well, or only the file manager side

I got pulled into a comparable mess with Vultr last year and the buried catch was that their Postgres backups were actually reachable through a separate admin endpoint they never documented, so "no export" was not entirely accurate

Could be worth digging around if you are still stuck

sara

Member

#14

74 days late but did anyone find a clean way to handle the database side? I hit the same wall with Vultr last month—no phpMyAdmin export, no CLI access, just a "custom" GUI that times out on tables over 2GB

I ended up writing a cron that SELECT INTO OUTFILE in chunks but it felt like building a ladder out of the basement while the house burned down

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...

This is the part that still makes me furious—how is that even legal post-GDPR? The right to data portability isn't supposed to mean "print screen your phpMyAdmin browse tab"

Has anyone actually filed an Article 15 request with one of these providers and gotten useful data back? Curious if the regulatory threat moves the needle or if they just ghost you for 30 days and send a CSV of your account balance

https://my.contabo.com

AlexWei

Member

Singapore

#15

Anyone figure out the database angle on Contabo yet

brusselsdzire1

Member OP

#16

92 days, huh. I never did finish that thought about DNS records.

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...

The database thing is what finally broke me. I ended up using a slow SELECT INTO OUTFILE via phpMyAdmin's SQL tab, then pulling the files through the same file-manager scrape. Took six hours for a 2 GB WordPress dump. No compression, no resume.

For anyone still stuck there: check if they left the old cPanel backup wizard disabled but not removed. Sometimes the URL still works even when the button is gone. /frontend/paper_lantern/backup/wizard.html, try it.

Did anyone ever find a clean way out of Contabo's email forwarding specifically. The MX rewrite Carlos mentioned is still happening, I caught it again last month on a client's account

lucgone

Member

Le Baguette

#17

147 days, I know, but this thread saved me last week

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...

Same situation with GreenCloudVPS, their "backup" was a read-only phpMyAdmin with a 30-second timeout on large tables

I ended up using a small Python script to paginate SELECT * with LIMIT offsets, ugly but it worked

One thing nobody mentioned: check if your "custom" panel still exposes the legacy cPanel /getsqlbackup/ endpoint, even if the UI hides it

Found that on two "white-label" hosts so far

Vive la résistance... électrique
moebig

Member

RAID is not backup

#18

Contabo still hasn't added export? Incha'allah they read this thread and feel shame.

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...
That is the part that killed me too. No mysqldump, no phpMyAdmin export, nothing. I ended up writing a garbage PHP script that looped SHOW TABLES and did SELECT * INTO OUTFILE. Felt like 2005 again. Did you ever get your databases out clean or are you still fighting with it

RAID 1: because paranoia pays
Bruno22

Member

#19

I am looking at the same problem now and I do not want to do a manual phpMyAdmin click-fest if there is a smarter way.

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...
I tried the cPanel scrape route but my account is on one of their "cloud" tiers where the file manager is actually custom, not cPanel at all. The API endpoints are different and I keep getting 403s on anything that looks automated. Has anyone found a working pattern for their newer stacks or is it really just screen-scrape and pray?

ping so high I wave back
olya

Member

Always Free

#20

Did anyone ever solve the database piece with Contabo specifically?

Nadia said:
I am still stuck on this I managed to get my files out with the cPanel scrape but the database is another story Contabo's "custom" panel...

I am staring at the same thing right now. PhpMyAdmin is there but export tab is just missing, no joke. The cPanel scrape brusselsdzire1 mentioned gets you files but I do not see a clean path for MySQL without shell access.

198 days late I know. Hoping someone found a workaround that does not involve retyping schema by hand.

licensing is a suggestion

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