Back up now

Backups run on their own, on the plan's schedule. A manual backup is needed before a risky step: an upgrade, a migration, a move. It's the same as a scheduled one: by the current plan and to all storages in the plan.

From the panel

1. Click “Back up now” — in the server row in the “Servers” list, or at the top of the server page.
2. At the bottom you see: “command sent — the agent will start the backup within a minute”.
3. While the backup runs, the button says “Backing up”, and under the server name is the stage: “collecting data”, “sending to storages”, “verifying what was sent”, “registering”.
4. At the end, the result appears at the bottom: which storages the backup was saved to and which are behind. If a component didn't make it into the backup, the panel names it and the reason.

Until the plan is confirmed, there is “Confirm plan” instead of the button.

The agent is offline — the command waits for it for 30 minutes. If the agent doesn't show up, the command expires and the backup doesn't start. A backup is already running — a second one won't start, and the panel says so.

From the server

sudo arcula backup

While it runs, it shows progress hints; at the end, the result for each storage:

Backup of prod-db-01 by plan revision 3
  ✓ prepare: PostgreSQL support 1.2 GB · files /opt/support/uploads 3.4 GB · host settings 18 KB  41 s
  ✓ Main       uploaded 214 MB of new data · manifest read back, sha256 matches  1 min 12 s
  ✗ Backup     the connection drops during upload (i/o timeout) — next attempt with a newer backup
Recovery point Oct 18 14:10 saved in: Main. Behind: Backup.

Flags:

• --storage NAME — only to one storage;
• --project NAME — only one project; for the server the backup will be incomplete;
• --no-wait — put the backup in the service queue and exit.

Exit code: 0 — every storage saved the backup; 5 — at least one didn't; 1 — there is no backup, or a required component failed; 7 — another backup is already running.

Step-by-step progress on screen — in sudo arcula, the “Back up now” item: stages, components and upload progress to each storage.

A backup started from the server shows in the panel too: the agent reports every job to the panel.

Where to see the details

Server → the “Log” tab → the “Backup saved” or “Backup not saved” line for each storage. Click the line to open the job steps with times: preparing data, upload, verification, registering the backup. Below are the “Log lines” as is, from restic and the agent.

On the “Overview” tab — “Latest backup”, “Duration” and the data size. On the “Backups” tab — each backup and its copy in each storage.

For a storage with an upload window, for example only at night, the copy goes out in the window. arcula backup doesn't wait for the window: it says the copy will go out in the window.