Skip to content
Nautilo Documentation
Deploy / Build / Administer

Back up and restore

Create a self-contained recovery bundle, verify it before trust, and restore only the data and artifacts you intend.

A backup is not trusted because a command returned zero. Nautilo writes the bundle manifest last and provides a separate read-only verifier for structure, checksums, database dumps, image identity, and restrictive permissions.

Create and verify a full bundle

export NAUTILO_RECOVERY_BUNDLE=/path/to/off-host-storage/circle-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS

nautilo backup "$NAUTILO_RECOVERY_BUNDLE"
nautilo backup verify "$NAUTILO_RECOVERY_BUNDLE"

Supplying a path creates the self-contained bundle. The no-path single-database dump is deprecated and is not the public disaster-recovery path. --stream is a disk-constrained remote fallback and is not resumable.

Expected verification ends with result: OK. The report is secret-redacting, but the bundle itself can contain databases, operator files, configuration, and persistent artifacts. Store it accordingly and copy it away from the host whose loss it must survive.

Restore deliberately

nautilo backup verify "$NAUTILO_RECOVERY_BUNDLE"
nautilo restore "$NAUTILO_RECOVERY_BUNDLE"

A healthy setupState=ready target requires --force. That flag authorizes overwrite; it does not make the chosen bundle correct. Verify profile, instance identity, bundle provenance, available space, and the recovery goal before using it.

Restore modeRecoversDoes not recover
defaultFull disaster-recovery path: databases, selected persistent bytes, operator state, stack bring-up and health pollingExternal provider accounts, DNS ownership, lost SSH/provider authority
--data-onlyDatabasesPersistent artifact/media/app bytes and disaster-recovery bring-up
--artifacts-onlyPersistent artifact/media/app volumes selected by the bundleDatabases

Mandatory dump validation occurs before destructive reset. Database reset and load share one transaction. After restore, Nautilo reconciles credentials, starts the Server, and health-polls it. That is not full application acceptance. Explicitly confirm the intended instance and setup state, load the SPA, sign in as the owner, and complete one model-backed turn.

What backups do not provide

Nautilo does not currently provide HA, automatic failover, native cloud recovery drivers, or automatic off-host scheduling. Same-host rollback depends on the retained prior image and verified bundle. Host-loss recovery also depends on external retention and access to the recorded image identity.