Isn’t just 1 backup a day too risky? If something happens to the server and the last backup happened yesterday, what do I do? Users registered between yesterday and today, are they no longer registered? I think it is better to make backups more frequent, perhaps every hour. But in case, you have to put the site in read-only before making a backup? Thanks in advance!

[image] yhh9xdq7d: The backup that is done daily through the settings, does the backup only of the database? Settings live in the database. [image] yhh9xdq7d: The database is the only thing you need to restore everything right? Technically you also want to backup the uploads folder and the app.yml site definition. However that is usually dealt with by having the app.yml in source control and the uploads in a object storage service. [image] yhh9xdq7d: Should the forum be in read-only mode when making the backup to the database? Or can it be done without any problem, at any time? No need for read-only.

+1 for this, again. Discourse is the only dynamic system where one can automatize backup of database only once a day.

I don’t expect this to change in core anytime soon. The I have had conversations about changing the default to more than once a week and that’s not happening. I think what might be good is a plugin that would add a site setting to make database-only backups in some number of hours (there is no reason to keep a zillion copies of uncompressable uploads in all of those full backups). If you’re interested, PM me or ask in marketplace.

If you need a better disaster recovery, I recommend following Running Discourse with a separate PostgreSQL server and running PostgreSQL on your own where you can control the exact high availability you need, like live sync replicas, point-in-time recovery and more frequent backups.

May I ask reason for this policy, is it techinal or more class wanting? 24 hours gap between backups is quite critical issue on high traffic forums. Or is this something you offer only to paying customers?

[image] Falco: running PostgreSQL on your own Sure, that is one solution. Quite rare solution among apps, though. In PHP/MySQL-world backuping database using cron would be really easy to do, but again - in that world every app can do it by themselves, with or without some plugin. Yes, I’m a little bit more than just average end user :wink: but I have very thin understanding how docker, rails etc. is working and for me situation where common tasks are almost mission impossible is really hard to understand. Sure, perhaps it is because of my limitations, but I’m not the only one wondering this, though. Well. We don’t get database backups easily in the near or medium future, I got that.

[image] Jagster: In PHP/MySQL-world backuping database using cron would be really easy to do You can setup PostgreSQL backups with cron too. Nothing different here. [image] yhh9xdq7d: Does running Discourse with a separate PostgreSQL server reduce speed by being on a different server? Not in any relevant way. Every Discourse instance we host, like this one here, uses a database in a dedicated server.

I only ask you two questions to understand better. The database is the only thing you need to restore everything right? The backup that is done daily through the settings, does the backup only of the database? Should the forum be in read-only mode when making the backup to the database? Or can it be done without any problem, at any time? Really thanks in advance!

So assuming I have the database on a separate server and do backups to that database every hour. If I also backup, from the settings in the admin panel, only the files including the app.yml file and the uploads folder would be included in the backup, but not the database right? @Falco

The backup will include the database and the uploads (if they are not on S3). app.yml is not in the backup, as Discourse cannot read it. What I recommend for most people is having the backups on S3 and app.yml somewhere that you can get it if there is an emergency. Then you can build a new container with the app.yml and restore it from the command line. But if you have the technical chops to backup/restore postgres with some other tool, and images on on S3 (or maybe you have them backed up some other way too), then you can just rebuild the container and you’re back up. Or maybe you want to have multiple continually mirrored postgres servers and then arrange to automatically switch to the backup if the primary goes down. There are a zillion ways to provide more frequent backups than Discourse provides. If you need more frequent backups, then you’ll need to do them some other way.

Multiple Daily Backups

Product Support

yhh9xdq7d December 13, 2021, 7:28pm 6

Does running Discourse with a separate PostgreSQL server reduce speed by being on a different server?

Topic		Replies	Views
Backup and Restoration Planning Product Support backups	7	348	January 20, 2025
Multiple backup schedules Feature	14	1410	April 13, 2022
Can I backup multiple times a day, and are they safe if the server goes down Self-hosting backups	16	734	March 13, 2024
Is daily backups enough? Product Support backups	8	387	December 29, 2025
How to take backup of Discourse hourly in a day Self-hosting backups	12	2755	September 10, 2018

Multiple Daily Backups

Related topics