Posts tagged “backup”

11 articles about backup.

Backups and recovery · 8 min read

How to write a restore runbook you can follow at 3 a.m.

A fill-in restore runbook template for one VPS covering who does what, the order of steps, RTO and RPO in plain words, and how to drill it until it works.

Backups and recovery · 9 min read

When a restore succeeds and hands you the wrong data

Restores that exit 0 can return old, empty or partial data. Learn six ways it happens and how to check row counts and freshness so a restore proves itself.

Postgres and data · 12 min read

Restore PostgreSQL to a timestamp with recovery_target_time

Step by step PITR on PostgreSQL 15 to 17 with recovery.signal, restore_command and recovery_target_time, plus timelines and how to verify the result.

Backups and recovery · 10 min read

restic forget and prune: how the keep flags decide

How restic forget --keep-daily, --keep-weekly and --keep-monthly combine, what prune really deletes, and how to pick a policy and test it with --dry-run.

Backups and recovery · 9 min read

A restic backup recipe for SQLite and Postgres on one VPS

Back up a small server with restic without corrupt databases, using SQLite online backup, pg_dump with roles, aborts on bad dumps and a restore test.

Postgres and data · 11 min read

PostgreSQL WAL archiving from scratch on a single Debian VPS

Turn on archive_mode, write a safe archive_command, take a pg_basebackup, and prove with pg_stat_archiver that WAL really reaches the archive.

Postgres and data · 10 min read

How much data a disk failure costs with WAL archiving

We killed a PostgreSQL server mid-write and restored from the archive alone, so you can choose archive_timeout from measured loss instead of guessing.

Postgres and data · 10 min read

pg_dump vs physical backup vs PITR: which to use

A decision guide to logical dumps, pg_basebackup and point-in-time recovery, with a comparison table and recommendations by database size and RPO.

Backups and recovery · 9 min read

Monitoring backups so that silence never means success

Set up dead-man's-switch pings, exit-code handling, snapshot age checks and failure alerts for a restic backup, so a job that stops running gets noticed.

Backups and recovery · 8 min read

I destroyed my server on purpose and timed the recovery

Script a disaster-recovery drill for one VPS. Destroy the server, rebuild from restic, check the data, and see timings and five failures it found.

Backups and recovery · 9 min read

The 3-2-1 backup rule applied to a single VPS

Translate 3-2-1 backups to one small server. See what counts as a copy, where the offsite one goes, how object storage compares with SFTP, and what it costs.