kanidm/book/src/backup_and_restore.md

# Backup and Restore

With any Identity Management (IDM) software, it's important you have the capability to restore in
case of a disaster - be that physical damage or a mistake. Kanidm supports backup and restore of the
database with three methods.

It is important that you only attempt to restore data with the same version of the server that the
backup originated from.

## Method 1 - Automatic Backup

Automatic backups can be generated online by a `kanidmd server` instance by including the
`[online_backup]` section in the `server.toml`. This allows you to run regular backups, defined by a
cron schedule, and maintain the number of backup versions to keep. An example is located in
[examples/server.toml](https://github.com/kanidm/kanidm/blob/master/examples/server.toml).

## Method 2 - Manual Backup

This method uses the same process as the automatic process, but is manually invoked. This can be
useful for pre-upgrade backups

To take the backup (assuming our docker environment) you first need to stop the instance:

```bash
docker stop <container name>
docker run --rm -i -t -v kanidmd:/data -v kanidmd_backups:/backup \
    kanidm/server:latest /sbin/kanidmd database backup -c /data/server.toml \
    /backup/kanidm.backup.json
docker start <container name>
```

You can then restart your instance. DO NOT modify the backup.json as it may introduce data errors
into your instance.

To restore from the backup:

```bash
docker stop <container name>
docker run --rm -i -t -v kanidmd:/data -v kanidmd_backups:/backup \
    kanidm/server:latest /sbin/kanidmd database restore -c /data/server.toml \
    /backup/kanidm.backup.json
docker start <container name>
```

## Method 3 - Manual Database Copy

This is a simple backup of the data volume containing the database files. Ensure you copy the whole
folder, rather than individual files in the volume!

```bash
docker stop <container name>
# Backup your docker's volume folder
# cp -a /path/to/my/volume /path/to/my/backup-volume
docker start <container name>
```

Restoration is the reverse process where you copy the entire folder back into place.