Back up and restore

This guide shows you how to back up an instance’s data and restore it. The right method depends on your storage backend.

Prerequisites

Choose an approach

A complete backup has two parts: the storage (the database or Data.fs) and any blobs kept on the filesystem. Whether you must back up a blob directory depends on db_blob_mode: in shared mode the directory holds the authoritative blobs, while in cache mode it is only a local cache and the authoritative blobs live in the database or on the ZEO server.

Backend

Storage backup

Filesystem blobs to back up

direct (filestorage)

Cold copy of Data.fs

The blob directory (always)

relstorage

pg_dump

The shared blob directory if db_blob_mode: shared; none in cache mode (blobs are in the database)

pgjsonb

pg_dump

None on the filesystem; the S3 bucket if blobs are tiered

zeo

Back up the storage on the ZEO server

The shared blob directory if db_blob_mode: shared

any

Portable zodb-convert export to a FileStorage (includes blobs)

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Important

Back up the storage and its blob directory from the same point in time. A blob directory that is out of sync with the storage causes POSKeyError on blob access. Because blob files are write-once, copying the blob directory last makes it a safe superset of what the storage references.

Filestorage: cold copy

Stop the instance, then copy the data file and blob directory together so they stay consistent:

cp var/filestorage/Data.fs /backup/Data.fs
cp -a var/blobs /backup/blobs

Restore by copying both back into place while the instance is stopped.

PostgreSQL-backed: pg_dump

For RelStorage and PGJsonb, back up the underlying PostgreSQL database with its native tools:

pg_dump --format=custom --file=/backup/zodb.dump plone

Restore into an empty database:

pg_restore --dbname=plone /backup/zodb.dump

With RelStorage in the recommended cache mode, blobs are stored in the database, so pg_dump captures them. When PGJsonb tiers blobs to S3 (db_pgjsonb_s3_bucket_name), back up that bucket as well; the database alone does not contain the tiered blobs.

ZEO

A ZEO client holds no authoritative data of its own, so there is nothing to back up on the client. Back up on the ZEO server host instead: the server runs a FileStorage, so use the cold-copy method above against the server’s Data.fs.

If the deployment uses a shared blob directory, also back it up as described below. ZEO server administration is otherwise outside the scope of this template; consult the ZODB/ZEO documentation.

Shared blob directories

When blobs are stored on the filesystem in shared mode rather than in the database, the blob directory (db_blob_location) is authoritative and needs its own backup. This applies to filestorage, to RelStorage or ZEO configured with db_blob_mode: shared, and to any setup whose blob directory is a network mount such as NFS.

Back up the directory alongside the storage:

cp -a /srv/zodb/blobs /backup/blobs

For ZEO, back up the shared blob directory on whichever host exports it, in addition to backing up the storage on the ZEO server. A cache-mode blob directory does not need backing up: it is rebuilt from the authoritative storage.

Portable backup with zodb-convert

To create a storage-agnostic snapshot, export the database to a FileStorage and keep the resulting Data.fs as a portable backup you can restore into any backend.

Use zodb-convert, which works with every backend. See Migrate data between storage backends for the step-by-step procedure using the generated convert-export.conf and convert-import.conf files.

With RelStorage you can instead use its bundled zodbconvert command.

Next steps