Backup & Restore

Updated for nself v1.0.12

Learn how to back up and restore your ɳSelf database with scheduled automation, point-in-time recovery, and safe rollback procedures.

Quick Reference

nself backup create              # Create a backup now
nself backup list                # Show all backups
nself backup restore <backup-id> # Restore a specific backup
nself backup verify              # Verify backup integrity
nself backup prune               # Remove old backups per retention policy
nself backup status              # Show backup system health
nself backup schedule            # Configure automated backups

Creating Backups

Manual backup

# Create a backup immediately
nself backup create

# Output:
# Creating backup... done
# Backup ID: bak_20260427_143022
# Size: 42 MB
# Location: /var/nself/backups/bak_20260427_143022

Listing backups

nself backup list

# Output:
# ID                     Created              Size    Status
# bak_20260427_143022    2026-04-27 14:30     42 MB   ok
# bak_20260426_020000    2026-04-26 02:00     41 MB   ok
# bak_20260425_020000    2026-04-25 02:00     40 MB   ok

Restoring a Backup

# Restore from a specific backup ID
nself backup restore bak_20260426_020000

# Interactive restore with confirmation
nself backup restore bak_20260426_020000 --confirm

Verifying Backups

# Verify the most recent backup
nself backup verify

# Verify a specific backup
nself backup verify bak_20260426_020000

# Output:
# Verifying bak_20260426_020000...
# Checksum: ok
# Restore test: ok
# Backup is valid

Automated Backups

Configure a schedule so backups run automatically:

# Open the schedule configuration
nself backup schedule

# Or set directly via env vars in .env:
BACKUP_ENABLED=true
BACKUP_SCHEDULE=0 2 * * *   # Daily at 2am (cron syntax)
BACKUP_RETENTION_DAYS=30

Pruning Old Backups

# Remove backups older than the retention policy
nself backup prune

# Remove backups older than N days (override policy)
nself backup prune --keep-days 14

Backup System Status

nself backup status

# Output:
# Backup system: enabled
# Schedule:      daily at 02:00
# Last backup:   2026-04-27 14:30 (bak_20260427_143022, 42 MB, ok)
# Next backup:   2026-04-28 02:00
# Retention:     30 days
# Total backups: 3 (stored), 0 (failed)

Disaster Recovery Integration

For production disaster recovery procedures including off-site storage and multi-server restore flows, see the Disaster Recovery guide.

Best Practices

• Test restores regularly — run nself backup verify on a schedule
• Back up before every major change — run nself backup create before migrations or major plugin installs
• Keep off-site copies — copy backups to S3 or another server for true DR
• Set retention to match your RTO — 30-day retention is a reasonable default for most deployments

Next Steps

• Disaster Recovery — full DR runbook with off-site storage
• Production Deployment — hardened production setup
• T08: Backup + restore tutorial — step-by-step walkthrough