nself dr

Disaster recovery operations: create and manage backups, restore from a snapshot, inspect your DR plan, run drills, and audit backup coverage. Your data is only safe if restoration has been tested.

Quick start

# Create a backup now
nself dr backup

# Check backup status
nself dr status

# Restore from the latest backup
nself dr restore --latest

# Run a DR drill (non-destructive restore simulation)
nself dr drill

Synopsis

nself dr <SUBCOMMAND> [FLAGS]

Description

nself dr is the CLI interface for the nSelf disaster recovery system. It covers the full DR lifecycle: creating encrypted backups, restoring from a specific snapshot, viewing your documented recovery plan, checking the health of scheduled backup jobs, running a dry-run drill to verify restoration works, and auditing backup coverage gaps.

Backups are stored at the destination configured in your NSELF_BACKUP_DEST env var (local path, S3-compatible bucket, or Hetzner Storage Box). They are encrypted with age encryption using the key at NSELF_BACKUP_KEY.

The weekly R2 snapshot cron is managed by nself dr backup scheduled via nself schedule. Use nself dr status to verify that the cron is running and recent snapshots exist.

Subcommands

nself dr backup

Create an encrypted snapshot of the database, volumes, and config.

# Create a full backup
nself dr backup

# Backup a specific environment
nself dr backup --env prod

# Backup to a specific destination
nself dr backup --dest s3://mybucket/nself-backups/

# Output:
# ✓ Dumping PostgreSQL (np_* tables)...
# ✓ Archiving volumes...
# ✓ Encrypting with age key...
# ✓ Uploading to s3://mybucket/nself-backups/2026-05-07-14-22.tar.age
# ✓ Backup complete (247 MB, 14s)

nself dr restore

Restore from a backup snapshot. Prompts for confirmation before overwriting data.

# List available snapshots, then restore one
nself dr restore --list
nself dr restore 2026-05-07-14-22

# Restore the most recent snapshot
nself dr restore --latest

# Restore to a specific environment
nself dr restore --latest --env staging

# Skip confirmation (CI use only)
nself dr restore --latest --yes

nself dr plan

Display the documented DR plan for this installation, including RTO/RPO targets and recovery steps.

nself dr plan
# DR Plan: nself.org production
# ─────────────────────────────
# RTO target:        1 hour
# RPO target:        24 hours (daily backup cron)
# Primary backup:    s3://nself-backups/prod/ (Hetzner Object Storage)
# Encryption:        age (key in ~/.nself/backup.key)
# Last drill:        2026-04-14 (passed)
# Next drill due:    2026-07-14
# Recovery steps:    nself dr restore --latest && nself start && nself doctor --deep

nself dr status

Show backup job status, last snapshot time, storage usage, and schedule health.

nself dr status
# Last backup:       2026-05-07 02:00 UTC (14h ago)
# Snapshot count:    30 (30-day retention)
# Storage used:      7.2 GB (s3://nself-backups/prod/)
# Backup schedule:   Daily at 02:00 UTC (next: 2026-05-08 02:00 UTC)
# Schedule status:   ✓ healthy
# Oldest snapshot:   2026-04-07
# Encryption:        ✓ age key present

nself dr drill

Run a non-destructive restore simulation: download the latest snapshot, decrypt it, and verify integrity — without overwriting the live database. Produces a drill report.

nself dr drill
# Downloading latest snapshot (2026-05-07-02-00.tar.age)...
# Decrypting...
# Verifying archive integrity...
# Test-importing to temporary Postgres instance...
# ✓ All np_* tables present (47 tables)
# ✓ Row counts match pre-backup telemetry
# ✓ Drill passed in 4m 22s
# Drill report: /tmp/nself-dr-drill-2026-05-07.json

nself dr audit

Audit backup coverage: identify tables, volumes, or services not included in the current backup config.

nself dr audit
# Tables in backup:  47 / 47 np_* tables ✓
# Volumes in backup: 3 / 4 volumes
#   ✗ nself_minio_data — not included in backup config
# Custom services:   1 / 1 CS_N services ✓
#
# Coverage: 98% — 1 gap found

Flags

Environment variables

Examples

Automate daily backups via cron

# Schedule a daily backup at 02:00 UTC
nself schedule create "nself dr backup --env prod" --cron "0 2 * * *" --name "daily-dr-backup"

Restore prod to staging for testing

# Backup prod
nself dr backup --env prod

# Restore that snapshot to staging
nself dr restore --latest --env staging

Run a quarterly DR drill

nself dr drill --json > drill-$(date +%F).json
# Archive the report for compliance records

Exit codes

• 0 — operation succeeded
• 1 — backup or restore failed
• 2 — snapshot not found or decryption failed
• 3 — invalid arguments or missing subcommand

Related

• nself deploy — deploy after a restore
• nself doctor — verify health after a restore
• Backup and Restore Guide — full DR documentation