Backup Strategies

Regular, tested backups are the most important operational practice for a self-hosted platform. This page summarizes backup approaches for each platform component.

What this page covers

Backup requirements per service
Docker volume backup approach
K3s persistent volume backup with Longhorn snapshots
Off-site backup with Restic
Backup testing: how to verify your backups work

Per-service backup summary

Service	What to back up	Backup method
Gitea	Data volume (repos, attachments), PostgreSQL DB	`gitea dump`, `pg_dump`
YouTrack	Data volume (includes DB backup)	YouTrack admin UI backup, volume copy
Prometheus	Metrics data (optional — metrics are transient)	Longhorn snapshot or skip
Grafana	Dashboard JSON exports, config	Grafana API export

Docker volume backup

# Back up a named Docker volume to a tarball
docker run --rm \
  -v <volume-name>:/data:ro \
  -v /backup:/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/<service>-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /data

Longhorn snapshots (K3s track)

Longhorn supports recurring snapshot schedules and backup to S3-compatible storage. Configure via the Longhorn UI under Volume > Recurring Jobs.

Off-site backup with Restic

Restic is a fast, encrypted backup tool that supports many backends (S3, B2, SFTP):

restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/mybucket/backups backup /backup