Acronis on a cPanel server is two separate pieces: the WHM plugin (acronis-backup-cpanel) and the backup agent (Cyber Protection Agent). Removing one does not remove the other, and neither uninstaller cleans up everything. This guide removes both, then clears the leftovers we found on real servers: an enabled systemd service, a stray mount, firewall ports and a yum repo that keeps downloading Acronis's package list.
Nothing here touches your sites, accounts or other backups, and the steps that change config say how to undo them.
Quick answer
Run as root, one command at a time:
yum remove acronis-backup-cpanel
/usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/uninstall/uninstall -a
systemctl disable --now acronis_plugin.service
yum-config-manager --disable acronis-cpanel-stable
Then move the unit file out of /etc/systemd/system/, remove the /mnt/Acronis mount and the Acronis ports in CSF if they are there, and delete the server from the Acronis console. The details are below.
What you need:
- Root SSH access to the cPanel & WHM server.
- Another backup already in place. Once Acronis is gone, the server has no off-site backup until the replacement has run. If you are moving to JetBackup, see How to Install JetBackup 5 on a cPanel Server.
Step 1: Remove the WHM plugin
yum remove acronis-backup-cpanel
Answer y at the prompt. The package's own removal script does the cPanel and WHM cleanup for you. The output should include:
Unregistering plugin in WHM...
acronisbackup unregistered
Plugin has been unregistered in WHM
Removing plugins feature, if exists...
Acronis Backup feature '/usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/addonfeatures/acronisbackup_reseller' has been removed.
Plugin has been successfully uninstalled
...
Complete!
This removes only the plugin. The agent keeps running until step 2.
Step 2: Remove the backup agent
/usr/lib/Acronis/BackupAndRecovery/uninstall/uninstall -a
-a runs the uninstaller without questions. Expected output:
Initializing...Done
Please wait while uninstalling Cyber Protection Agent from the system...Done
Cyber Protection Agent has been successfully removed from the system.
Step 3: Check that the packages and files are gone
Each of these should print nothing, or say No such file or directory:
rpm -qa | grep -i acronis
rpm -qa | grep -iE 'backupandrecovery|snapapi|cyberprotect'
ls /usr/lib/Acronis/
ls -d /etc/Acronis /var/lib/Acronis /var/log/Acronis /opt/acronis
ls /usr/local/cpanel/base/3rdparty/acronisbackup
The second rpm check matters: the agent's packages do not have "acronis" in their names, so the first check alone can miss them.
Then check that Acronis's snapshot kernel module (snapapi) is gone:
lsmod | grep -i snapapi
find /lib/modules -iname '*snapapi*'
Both should print nothing. Many guides use dkms status here, but dkms is not installed on every server (bash: dkms: command not found). The two commands above work everywhere.
Step 4: Disable the leftover service
On every server we cleaned, the plugin's systemd unit was still there and still enabled after the uninstall, because yum remove does not clean /etc/systemd/system/. Check:
systemctl list-unit-files | grep -iE 'acronis|aakore|mms'
If you see acronis_plugin.service enabled, stop and disable it:
systemctl disable --now acronis_plugin.service
Then move the unit file out of the way. Moving it, rather than deleting it, keeps the step reversible:
mv /etc/systemd/system/acronis_plugin.service /root/acronis_plugin.service.removed-$(date +%F)
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl reset-failed acronis_plugin.service
The last command may print:
Failed to reset failed state of unit acronis_plugin.service: Unit acronis_plugin.service not loaded.
That is expected and harmless: there was no failed state left to clear. Run the list-unit-files check again. It should now print nothing.
To undo: move the file back, run systemctl daemon-reload, then systemctl enable --now acronis_plugin.service.
Step 5: Remove the /mnt/Acronis mount, if it is there
Some servers keep a small tmpfs mounted at /mnt/Acronis after the uninstall. Others don't. Check first:
df -h | grep -i acronis
grep -ri acronis /etc/fstab /etc/systemd/system
The grep should print nothing, which means nothing will remount it at boot. If df shows the mount, remove it:
umount /mnt/Acronis
rmdir /mnt/Acronis
rmdir only removes an empty folder, so it cannot delete data by mistake.
Step 6: Close the Acronis firewall ports (CSF)
If you opened ports for Acronis in CSF, close them now. List the port settings:
grep -E '^TCP6?_(IN|OUT)' /etc/csf/csf.conf
The Acronis ports are 4050, 8443, 18018, 18019, 44445, 55556 and the range 7770:7800. Edit the file with vi /etc/csf/csf.conf and remove only those, from both the IPv4 (TCP_IN, TCP_OUT) and the IPv6 (TCP6_IN, TCP6_OUT) lines. CSF keeps them separately. Before removing 8443, make sure nothing else on the server uses it (ss -tlnp | grep 8443). Leave every other port alone: it belongs to your own setup. Then reload CSF:
csf -r
If none of those ports are listed, skip this step.
Step 7: Disable the Acronis yum repo
yum remove leaves the repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/, so every later yum run still downloads "Acronis Repository for cPanel plugin - stable". Disable it:
yum-config-manager --disable acronis-cpanel-stable
yum repolist all | grep -i acronis
The first command prints nothing on success (a wrong repo ID prints No matching repo to modify). The second should show the repo as disabled.
To undo: yum-config-manager --enable acronis-cpanel-stable.
Step 8: Delete the server from the Acronis console
Uninstalling does not remove the server from your Acronis account. Log in to the Acronis web console, open Devices, and delete the server. Until you do, it keeps using a licence or quota slot.
Troubleshooting
"Failed to reset failed state ... not loaded". Harmless, see step 4.
dkms: command not found. Use the lsmod and find checks from step 3 instead.
Acronis still shows in yum output. The repo is still enabled. See step 7.
The plugin still shows in WHM. Run rpm -qa | grep -i acronis. If acronis-backup-cpanel is still listed, step 1 did not finish; run it again and read the output for errors.