Backups

Backup Strategy

Index Database (Automated):

• Hourly backups via cron job
• 7-day retention period
• Small database size (~2.3 MB)
• Location: /home/torrust/backups
• Uses SQLite's .backup command for consistency

Tracker Database (Manual Only):

• NOT scheduled in cron due to large size (~17GB)
• Relies on Digital Ocean weekly droplet backups
• Manual backup script available if needed: ./share/bin/tracker-db-backup.sh
• Uses SQLite's .backup command for consistency
• See Issue #49 for details

Backup Method

Both backup scripts use SQLite's .backup command instead of cp to ensure backup consistency. The .backup command:

• Guarantees consistency even with concurrent writes to the database
• Uses proper page-level locking mechanisms
• Handles WAL (Write-Ahead Logging) mode databases automatically
• Automatically restarts if the source database is modified mid-backup

This is critical for production systems with high traffic, where the probability of writes occurring during backup is very high.

See: SQLite Backup API Documentation

Backup Index Database

Automated Backups

Index backups run automatically every hour via cron. See crontab.conf.

Manual Backup

cd /home/torrust/github/torrust/torrust-demo/
./share/bin/index-db-backup.sh

Backup Tracker Database (Manual Only)

cd /home/torrust/github/torrust/torrust-demo/
./share/bin/tracker-db-backup.sh

Note: Due to the large size (~17GB), tracker backups are not automated. Use Digital Ocean droplet backups for regular snapshots.

Check Backups Crontab Configuration

sudo crontab -e

You should see the crontab.conf configuration file.

Check Backups

ls -alt /home/torrust/backups
total 26618268
-rwxr-x--- 1 root root 2342912 May 12 07:00 backup_2025-05-12_07-00-01.db
-rwxr-x--- 1 root root 2342912 May 12 06:00 backup_2025-05-12_06-00-02.db
-rwxr-x--- 1 root root 2342912 May 12 05:00 backup_2025-05-12_05-00-01.db
-rwxr-x--- 1 root root 2342912 May 12 04:00 backup_2025-05-12_04-00-01.db

You can also check the script output with:

tail /var/log/cron.log