Backups

The Settings › Backup (Configuration › Sauvegarde) page is for administrators only. A backup is a .zip archive: the database, always included, plus the files you choose.

Automatic backup

Turn on the Automatic backup switch, then choose:

the frequency: daily or weekly (with the day);
the time (the install’s time zone);
the number of automatic backups kept: beyond that, the oldest are deleted. Manual and imported backups are never deleted automatically.

The card shows the date of the next backup and the status of the last one: succeeded or failed, with the reason. A failure also triggers an alert, sent through your notification channels.

Content

Tick what goes into backups:

Box	Content
Database	always included: aquariums, livestock, measurements, settings…
Photos	photos of aquariums, livestock and frags
ICP reports	PDFs of imported tests
Purchase documents	invoices, received certificates, CITES permits

Destination: server or external storage

On the server: in data/base/backups, next to the database. It’s simple, but a disk failure takes both the data and its backups.
External storage: in a folder mounted from a NAS, for example an NFS share. Enter the folder as the container sees it (/backups-nfs with the guided install), then click Test.

The share is mounted by the server, not by the app: see NFS share below. On the first save, AquasManager drops a marker file .aquasmanager-backups in the folder. It then refuses to write if that file is missing. That way, an unmounted share doesn’t silently fill up the local disk.

If the external storage doesn’t respond when an automatic backup runs, the archive is made on the server, and the backup is marked as failed with an alert.

Back up now

Back up now creates an archive with the configured content and destination and adds it to the list. The button’s arrow offers two other actions:

Back up with other content…: boxes and destination chosen just this once;
Download an archive: the archive is downloaded to your device, without being kept on the server.

Available backups

The list gathers the server’s backups and those on external storage. For each one, it shows the date, the type (automatic, manual, imported, before restore), the content, the location and the size. Three actions are available: restore, download, delete.

Import adds a .zip archive to the list, for example a backup from another server or a downloaded archive. It’s checked, but not restored: you then choose whether to restore it.

Restore

Click the restore icon on the row you want. The confirmation tells you what will be replaced.

The database is always replaced.
Photos, ICP reports and purchase documents are replaced only if they’re in the archive. Otherwise, current files are kept as they are.
A full backup of the current state is made just before (“before restore” type). So you can go back.
The service then restarts for a few seconds, and the page reloads by itself.

Archives created by older versions (without a manifest) can still be restored: they contain the database and all photos.

Guided install

In the guided install, tick Backups on an NFS share. The script asks for the NAS address and the share path, then:

installs the NFS client (nfs-common) if needed;
adds the mount to /etc/fstab, on demand (x-systemd.automount), in /opt/aquasmanager/data/nfs;
makes it visible in the container as /backups-nfs (AQUAS_BACKUP_EXTERNAL_PATH).

On the NAS, give the AquasManager server’s address read/write access to the share. In the app, then choose External storage: the /backups-nfs folder is already filled in. Click Test, then Save settings.

A share can be added to an existing install with sudo aquasmanager reconfigure.

Manual install or Kubernetes

Mount the share on the host, for example with an /etc/fstab line:

nas.local:/volume1/aquasmanager  /mnt/aquas-nfs  nfs  nofail,_netdev,x-systemd.automount,soft  0 0

Then pass it to the container:

volumes:
  - type: bind
    source: /mnt/aquas-nfs
    target: /backups-nfs
    bind:
      propagation: rslave

On Kubernetes, a persistent volume on an NFS storage class, mounted for example at /backups-nfs, does the same.

From the server

sudo aquasmanager backup

This command makes an immediate backup, with the content and destination configured in the app.

Backing up the `data` folder

In a Docker install, everything is in ./data. A copy of this folder, with the containers stopped, is a complete backup: database, photos, session signing key and broker data.