Backup and Restore

Dakera stores all persistent data in S3-compatible storage (MinIO by default). Backups protect against data loss from hardware failure, accidental deletion, or corrupted upgrades.

What to Back Up

Component	Location	Contains
MinIO data	minio-data Docker volume	All memory vectors, metadata, and namespace data
RocksDB cache	dakera-rocksdb Docker volume	L2 warm-tier cache (rebuilds automatically from S3)
Environment config	docker/.env	API keys, MinIO credentials, custom settings

MinIO data is the critical backup target. RocksDB is a cache that rebuilds from S3 on startup.

Backup Procedures

Option 1: MinIO Client (mc)

The MinIO client can mirror the entire bucket to a local directory or another S3-compatible target.

# Install mc (if not already available)
# https://min.io/docs/minio/linux/reference/minio-mc.html

# Configure the MinIO alias
mc alias set dakera-local http://localhost:9000 minioadmin minioadmin

# Mirror to a local directory
mc mirror dakera-local/dakera /backups/dakera-$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Mirror to another S3 bucket (offsite backup)
mc alias set backup-s3 https://s3.amazonaws.com ACCESS_KEY SECRET_KEY
mc mirror dakera-local/dakera backup-s3/dakera-backup

Option 2: Docker Volume Backup

# Stop Dakera to ensure consistency
docker compose down

# Back up the MinIO volume
docker run --rm \
  -v dakera_minio-data:/source:ro \
  -v /backups:/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/minio-data-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /source .

# Restart
docker compose up -d

Option 3: Scheduled Backups with Cron

# Add to crontab: daily backup at 2 AM
0 2 * * * mc mirror --overwrite dakera-local/dakera /backups/dakera-daily 2>&1 | logger -t dakera-backup

Restore Procedures

Restore from mc Mirror

# Stop Dakera
docker compose down

# Restore the bucket contents
mc mirror /backups/dakera-20260514 dakera-local/dakera

# Restart
docker compose up -d

Restore from Volume Backup

# Stop Dakera
docker compose down

# Remove the old volume and recreate
docker volume rm dakera_minio-data
docker volume create dakera_minio-data

# Restore
docker run --rm \
  -v dakera_minio-data:/target \
  -v /backups:/backup:ro \
  alpine tar xzf /backup/minio-data-20260514.tar.gz -C /target

# Restart
docker compose up -d

# Verify health
curl http://localhost:3000/health

Best Practices

• Test restores regularly — a backup you haven't tested is not a backup
• Keep offsite copies — mirror to a separate S3 provider or physical location
• Retain multiple snapshots — keep at least 7 daily and 4 weekly backups
• Back up .env separately — losing your DAKERA_ROOT_API_KEY means losing access to encrypted data
• Monitor backup size — sudden changes in backup size may indicate data corruption or unexpected growth