Backups

A backup is a security copy. Envbay automatically backs up the settings of your instance (your development server). You back up your projects with a schedule.

The essentials

• Every night at 03:00, Envbay backs up your instance settings. The last 7 backup versions (saved points in time) are kept.
• This backup does not contain the files of your projects.
• You back up projects in Envoryx with a backup schedule. These backups are also stored off-site. The Starter plan keeps the last 3 per project; Team and Agency keep 5.
• Without a schedule in the project, nothing is copied.
• On the Free plan (free trial), the instance backup stays on the server. There is no backup of single projects and nothing off-site.

Set up a schedule for a project

1. Open your project.
2. Open the Backups area.
3. Open Scheduled backups.
4. Choose daily or weekly.
5. Choose the time.

Back up manually

1. Open your project.
2. Open the Backups area.
3. Click Create backup.
4. Click Download to save the backup to your computer.

Off-site copies

Your plan decides the target for off-site copies. You see it in Envoryx under Settings → Backups as from your hoster. With Fetch you bring a copy into your instance. You restore it from there. Only Envbay can change the target. Only Envbay can delete copies there.

Restore a backup from another instance

This works from Envoryx 0.45.0. The version of your instance is in the chapter Updates.

1. Download the backup in the other instance.
2. Open Settings → Secret key there and click Show key. From Envoryx 0.46.0, Envoryx asks for your password. Accounts without a password (single sign-on) need a sign-in within the last 10 minutes.
3. In your Envbay instance, open New project → Existing website.
4. Upload the .tar file. Envoryx recognises the backup.
5. Start Restore into a new project.
6. Enter the key of the other instance.

Envoryx does not store the key you enter.

This applies to project backups. Envbay does not restore instance backups of another instance.

The way back: Another instance needs the secret key of your Envbay instance. Envbay does not display it. Envoryx shows it to admins under Settings → Secret key. According to the Envoryx documentation, you confirm your password first. Accounts without a password (single sign-on) need a sign-in within the last 10 minutes. Keep a copy outside Envoryx.

Back up the instance now

On the service page (your instance page in my.envbay.com), there is Back up now. The steps are in the Control instance chapter.

A backup does not replace Git

Always keep your source code in a separate Git repository (a place for code versions).

If something does not work

Need to restore something? Open a ticket with us (a message to support). Give the name of your instance and the date you need. The steps are in the Help chapter. We cannot promise a time frame.

What is backed up

	Free	Starter	Team	Agency
Instance backup (daily)	yes, local only	yes	yes	yes
Retention of instance backups	3 backup versions	7 backup versions	7 backup versions	7 backup versions
Project backups off-site	not included	3 per project	5 per project	5 per project

• Instance backup: daily at 03:00, the last 7 are kept. It contains Envoryx itself (accounts, settings, project list), but no project files and no Docker volumes; the secret key is missing. Details: Instance backups. Before each database migration of a new Envoryx version, Envoryx also creates its own backup.
• Project backups: Backups that Envoryx creates on a project’s schedule also go to the off-site storage of your plan (Starter 3, Team 5, Agency 5 per project). Without a schedule in the project, nothing is copied; manually created backups stay in the instance. See Project backups.
• Free: A trial instance is backed up locally only (on the same server, with the retention the instance itself keeps). There is no off-site copy and there are no project backups. See Plans and limits.
• Encrypted and off-site: The copies are encrypted with a plan-specific passphrase and transferred to separate storage outside your instance. The server location is in the EU. Background: Off-site backups.
• Hoster off-site target: Your plan decides the target. In Envoryx it appears under Settings → Backups as from your hoster. As an admin you see the copies there and bring them into the local list with Fetch to restore them. Only Envbay can change the target or delete copies there.
• Monitoring: If off-site backups for an instance stay absent for more than two days, Envbay flags this.
• Not backed up: Envbay does not back up customer containers as a whole. Your project files can only be restored from project backups (or your Git repository).

Back up now

On the service page, Back up now starts an instance backup via the Fleet Manager, which is copied to the off-site storage of your plan. It is not a project export. See Control instance.

Project backups in Envoryx

You back up projects in Envoryx under Backups (Create backup, Download, Scheduled backups). A project backup contains database dumps, the project directory (without vendor/ and node_modules/), the object storage and the project settings; data from Redis, OpenSearch, Meilisearch, Typesense and RabbitMQ is not included. Backups contain database passwords and tokens: treat downloaded files like secrets.

Restore

Instance or off-site backup version: We restore on request. Open a ticket with the instance name, project and desired date. There is no guarantee of duration or success.

Restore a project yourself: In Envoryx, select the backup and then Restore; Restore into a new project creates a new project from the backup. If the backup comes from another instance, the dialog asks for its secret key, see Export and import.

Export and import

Download provides one .tar per backup. It contains, among other things, the database dump (database.sql.gz) and the project directory; both can also be used without Envoryx.

Backup from another instance: From Envoryx 0.45.0 you restore a project backup of another Envoryx instance into a new project. The project settings in the backup are encrypted with the secret key of the source instance. Upload the .tar file through New project → Existing website. Envoryx recognises the backup. The restore dialog asks for the secret key of the source instance. You show it there under Settings → Secret key → Show key. From Envoryx 0.46.0, Envoryx asks for your password first; with single sign-on accounts, a sign-in within the last 10 minutes is enough. Envoryx checks it against the key ID in the backup. Then it re-seals the settings with the key of your instance. Envoryx does not store the key you enter. This also applies to backups from an offsite target and to backups from before a key replacement. On the command line, envoryx import and envoryx backup recover take the key with --key-file. The version of your instance is in the chapter Updates. A hosted instance does not restore instance backups of another instance since Envoryx 0.45.1; it takes only its own instance backups. Projects from elsewhere come over as project backups with the key of the source.

The way back: A backup of your Envbay instance opens in another instance only with the secret key of your Envbay instance. Envbay does not display this key. According to the Envoryx documentation, an admin of the instance shows it under Settings → Secret key → Show key, after confirming their password (with single sign-on accounts, after a sign-in within the last 10 minutes). Keep a copy outside Envoryx. Without the key, the database dump and project directory stay usable. The target instance cannot open the project settings then.

Power outage

For speed reasons, writes are not forced to disk immediately. In a sudden power outage of the platform, data from the last few seconds may be missing, even if a backup exists.