Backing up Mender

General Discussions
1

Hi,

I’m just implementing a backup script for our self-hosted Mender server (backing up to S3) following the commands outlined here: Backup and restore | Mender documentation

I was just wondering about the requirement for the docker containers to be turned off during the backup process. I don’t have any experience with Mongo, but it seems strange to need to turn off a production system to be able to do a backup. Surely there is a way to do the backup while Mender keeps running?

Any insight into why this needs to happen would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

James

2

@tranchitella @peter can either of you comment?

3

@james-onsolution docker-compose doesn’t provide volume snapshot functionalities. While it is not strictly mandatory to turn the database off before copying the volume, there is no guarantee a hot copy of the mongodb data files while the server is running will produce a working backup.

If you need to backup the database without turning it off, you can use the mongodump instead of relying on a copy of the data files.