Limitations to Restoring .bak Files
When restoring a SQL Server database back-up file, you are limited to using .bak files that you created using the back-up feature in our Hosting Control Center. You are not able to restore a .bak file that was created outside of our system. There are several reasons we have established this restriction:
- Based on the Microsoft® security best practices, hosting providers should not enable users to restore .bak files from sources outside the hosting provider.
- Certain security vulnerabilities can be passed through a .bak file, effectively allowing a malicious attacker to execute arbitrary code within a hosting provider's protected environment.
Based on this information, we observe the Microsoft® security recommendations and disallow restores of SQL Server .bak files that did not originate from a backup within our system. Therefore, you are not able to use the SQL Server restore feature to import a .bak file that came from a database outside our system.
You are allowed to download to your local hard drive a .bak file that is created using the backup-up feature in our Hosting Control Center and later upload this file to perform a restore, providing it has not been altered following the download.
For additional information about restoring your database, see the following articles:
Downloading a Stored Back-Up File
Restoring a SQL Server Database
Where are database back-up files saved?