Backup keeps encrypted copies of everything in your Burrow — its projects, environments, secrets, and the shared note — on a schedule you set, so you can rebuild the Burrow on another machine if you ever need to. Each copy is a single archive file, sealed with a passphrase, that you can download and later restore from.
Turning on automatic backups#
Use the Automatic backups switch at the top of the page. The first time you turn it on, the Burrow generates a backup passphrase and shows it to you once.
The passphrase#
When it appears, use Copy to put it on your clipboard, store it in a password manager or somewhere equally safe, then select I've saved it. Each archive is sealed with the passphrase that was in force when it was written, so keep any passphrase for as long as you keep backups made under it.
Schedule and retention#
With backups on, two settings control the schedule:
Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
Every | How often a backup runs — a number, in minutes or hours. |
kept | How many archives to keep. Once there are more, the oldest is removed after each new one. |
Change either, then select Save.
Where backups are written#
The Destination is the folder on the server the archives are written to; leave it as shown to use the default. To send them elsewhere — a mounted disk or a synced folder, say — enter the path and use Test to confirm the Burrow can write there before you Save.
Backing up now#
Select Back up now to take a backup immediately, on top of the schedule. The status line above the list shows when the last backup ran, when the next is due, how many are kept, their total size, and the free space left at the destination. If the most recent run failed, the reason is shown there.
Your backups#
Each archive is listed with when it was taken and its size. Every row has three actions:
Action | What it does |
|---|---|
Verify | Confirm the archive opens (covered below). |
Download | Save the archive to your computer — the file you place on another server to restore. |
Delete | Remove that archive from the Burrow. The one you download is a copy, so downloading first keeps it. |
Checking a backup#
A backup is only worth having if it opens, and the passphrase is only worth saving if it is the right one. Verify answers both. Paste the passphrase you saved and select Check to confirm it opens the archive; leave the field blank to check only that the file is intact, using the Burrow's own copy of the passphrase.
When it opens, it reports what is inside:
Shown | Meaning |
|---|---|
Taken | When the backup was made. |
tables | How much of the Burrow the archive holds. |
keys included | The archive carries the key that opens its secrets. Without it (shown as NO KEYS) the backup cannot be restored, so this is the field that decides whether it is a usable backup at all. |
burrow · pg | The Burrow version and database version the archive was taken from. |
Restoring from a backup#
Download the archive you want, then follow Backup restoration to bring its contents back on a Burrow. Restoring needs the passphrase the backup was written with — the same one this page showed you when you turned backups on.