Automatic backups

Set the schedule once and Pawabase keeps saving backups of the environment. Open Project → Backups → Schedule.

The schedule

Setting	Meaning	Default
Back up automatically	Turn the schedule on or off	off
How often	Hourly, Daily or Weekly	Daily
At (UTC hour)	For daily and weekly backups, the hour it runs, 0 to 23, in UTC. Pick a quiet hour for your users.	3
On	For weekly backups, the day: Monday to Sunday	Monday
What to include	Definitions, Settings, Users & access, Data (see what a backup holds). Empty means everything.	everything
Keep the last	Keep at most this many scheduled backups; older ones are removed. 0 means no limit by count. Up to 365.	7
Keep for (days)	Remove scheduled backups older than this. 0 means no limit by age. Up to 3,650.	30

Backups are taken by the platform’s scheduler, which checks every couple of minutes whether one is due, so a daily backup at 03:00 UTC starts shortly after 03:00. If one was missed while nothing was running, the next check takes it.

How old backups are removed

After each scheduled backup, Pawabase goes through the scheduled backups from newest to oldest and removes any that is beyond the count in Keep the last or older than Keep for (days), whichever applies first. Pinned backups and backups you took by hand are never removed by the schedule.

Keep the last	Keep for	Result with daily backups
7	30	The last 7 days
30	30	The last 30 days
0	14	Everything from the last 14 days
24	0	With hourly backups, the last 24 hours

Back up now

Back up now takes one immediately. Give it:

Field	Meaning
Name	Something you’ll recognise, such as Before the pricing change (up to 160 characters)
Note	Why you took it (up to 1,000 characters)
What to include	The parts to save; everything by default

It appears under Saved backups next to the scheduled ones.

Pin a backup

Pin a backup to keep it until you unpin or delete it. Pin one before a release, a risky migration, a large import or a restore. You can rename a backup or change its note at any time.

Check a backup

Verify reads a saved backup back and checks it the way a restore would: that it can be read, its checksums match, and which parts it contains with a summary of their contents. Verify important backups, for example the one you pinned before a migration.

Download a saved backup

Download gives you the backup as one file, to keep somewhere else or to restore into another environment or project. A backup can contain password hashes and personal data: store the file as carefully as the database itself.

From code

const m = manage(pawabase);
await m.backups.snapshot("before-launch");                       // back up now
const { data } = await m.backups.snapshots();                     // saved backups

# turn on daily backups at 02:00 UTC, keeping 14
curl -X PUT "$PAWABASE_URL/platform/v1/envs/production/backup-schedule" \
  -H "apikey: $PAWABASE_SECRET_KEY" -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"enabled": true, "frequency": "daily", "hour": 2, "keep_last": 14, "keep_days": 30}'
# check a backup can be read back
curl -X POST "$PAWABASE_URL/platform/v1/envs/production/snapshots/$SNAPSHOT_ID/verify" -H "apikey: $PAWABASE_SECRET_KEY"

Endpoint	Does
`GET …/snapshots`	Saved backups and the schedule
`POST …/snapshots`	Back up now: `name`, `note`, `include`
`GET`, `PATCH`, `DELETE …/snapshots/{id}`	Read, rename or re-note or pin (`pinned`), delete
`POST …/snapshots/{id}/verify`	Read it back and check it
`GET …/snapshots/{id}/download`	Download it as a file
`POST …/snapshots/{id}/restore`	Restore it (see Restore)
`PUT …/backup-schedule`	Set the schedule

A sensible plan

Daily automatic backups of everything, keeping the last 14 to 30.
Hourly backups for environments with frequent important changes, keeping the last 24 to 48.
A pinned backup before every release or risky change.
A download of an important backup kept outside Pawabase.
A test restore into a non-production environment every quarter. A backup you’ve never restored is a hope, not a backup.

If you only need to protect definitions, untick Data to keep backups small and quick.

Environments

Activity

Secrets and backups

Pawabase Cloud

Automatic backups

The schedule

How old backups are removed

Back up now

Pin a backup

Check a backup

Download a saved backup

From code

A sensible plan

​The schedule

​How old backups are removed

​Back up now

​Pin a backup

​Check a backup

​Download a saved backup

​From code

​A sensible plan

The schedule

How old backups are removed

Back up now

Pin a backup

Check a backup

Download a saved backup

From code

A sensible plan