As mentioned in the title, my VPS was attacked. I tried to get the current discourse version information by running ./discourse-doctor, but it failed. Fortunately, I had downloaded a backup to my local machine. How can I retrieve the current version information from this backup? Thanks.

[image] Alienazk: if a VPS has been hacked, is it still possible to back up the discourse? That depends on what state they left it in. You could try to go through the rails console: cd /var/discourse ./launcher enter app discourse backup cd public/backups/default scp * user@destination.example.com: Your backup filename has the format forumname-2025-05-22-151843-v20250521053324.tar.gz The long string at the end is the latest migration that has been ran. To find out which commit it belongs to, cd /var/www/discourse git blame db/migrate/20250521053324* You will now see some output and the left column contains the commit hash. This is the minimal commit your new forum should be at. (Sometimes the commit belongs to a plugin, in that case use locate to find the plugin, cd into its directory and do the same git blame stanza)

[image] Alienazk: How can I retrieve the current version information from this backup? What problem are you trying to solve? You can restore the backup to any newer version.

I’m planning to reinstall the OS and then set up the previous version of Discourse to avoid any plugin compatibility issues. By the way, if a VPS has been hacked, is it still possible to back up the discourse? I only have an automatic backup from a few days ago.

I would recommend just updating to latest. It’s easiest, and there is no risk. If it doesn’t work, then you can go about following those excellent instructions to find the commit and restoring to that one (and are you also going to restore each of the plugins to some particular commit?).

I attempted to perform a backup, but it failed. The output is as follows: # cd /var/discourse/ /var/discourse# ./launcher enter app x86_64 arch detected. /var/www/discourse# discourse backup Starting backup... EXCEPTION: BackupRestore::OperationRunningError /var/www/discourse/lib/backup_restore/backuper.rb:70:in `ensure_no_operation_is_running' /var/www/discourse/lib/backup_restore/backuper.rb:22:in `run' script/discourse:84:in `backup' /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.2.0/gems/thor-1.3.1/lib/thor/command.rb:28:in `run' /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.2.0/gems/thor-1.3.1/lib/thor/invocation.rb:127:in `invoke_command' /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.2.0/gems/thor-1.3.1/lib/thor.rb:527:in `dispatch' /var/www/discourse/vendor/bundle/ruby/3.2.0/gems/thor-1.3.1/lib/thor/base.rb:584:in `start' script/discourse:290:in ` ' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:58:in `load' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:58:in `kernel_load' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli/exec.rb:23:in `run' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli.rb:451:in `exec' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/command.rb:28:in `run' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/invocation.rb:127:in `invoke_command' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor.rb:527:in `dispatch' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli.rb:34:in `dispatch' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/lib/thor/base.rb:584:in `start' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/cli.rb:28:in `start' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/exe/bundle:28:in `block in ' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/lib/bundler/friendly_errors.rb:117:in `with_friendly_errors' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/bundler-2.5.3/exe/bundle:20:in ` ' /usr/local/bin/bundle:25:in `load' /usr/local/bin/bundle:25:in ` ' Deleting old backups... Cleaning stuff up... Removing '.tar' leftovers... Marking backup as finished... Notifying 'system' of the end of the backup... Finished! [FAILED] Does this mean I won’t be able to perform a backup?

It thinks another backup is running. You might try rebooting the container and then trying.

Yes, this table can get very large because of a bug, see Clean up user_auth_token_logs? If it becomes a problem then you could stop the backup, enter the rails console rails c UserAuthTokenLog.delete_all and then restart the backup.

Thank you for your suggestion. I’ve successfully backed up the latest data. In addition, since the OS has already been reinstalled, how can I restore the latest state directly using the app.yml and backup files? Is there any official documentation for this? Or do I need to go through the standard Docker installation process first, and then import the backup to restore everything? By the way, when I tried to find out which commit my Discourse backup corresponds to, I got the following output. Any idea why that might be？ /var/www/discourse# git blame db/migrate/20240516145911* fatal: no such path 'db/migrate/20240516145911*' in HEAD

[image] Alienazk: Or do I need to go through the standard Docker installation process first, and then import the backup to restore everything? This! [image] Alienazk: By the way, when I tried to find out which commit my Discourse backup corresponds to, I got the following output. Any idea why that might be？ [image] RGJ: (Sometimes the commit belongs to a plugin, in that case use locate to find the plugin, cd into its directory and do the same git blame stanza) Spoiler: it belongs to the chat plugin. root@testbeta:/var/www/discourse# locate 202405161459 /var/www/discourse/plugins/chat/db/migrate/20240516145911_update_user_options_for_thread_title_prompts.rb root@testbeta:/var/www/discourse# cd plugins/chat/ root@testbeta:/var/www/discourse/plugins/chat# git blame db/migrate/20240516145911*

Thank you very much! I’m not quite sure :thinking:does this method generate a commit to the Discourse repository itself, rather than to the chat plugin? If so, could you explain the mechanism behind it?

How can I get the current version information from my backup?

Product Support

Alienazk May 24, 2025, 11:05am 8

Thank you for your advice.
I was able to successfully start the backup.
However, the process has been stuck at this point for about 20 minutes (see screenshot below). Is this normal?

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How can I get the current version information from my backup?

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