Backup & Restore

Protect your self-hosted SilentSuite data with regular backups.

What to Back Up

There are three things to back up:

1. The PostgreSQL database -- contains all encrypted sync data and user accounts.
2. The Etebase data volume -- stores the Etebase server's secret key and related data.
3. The .env file -- contains all your secrets and configuration.

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Back Up the Database

Create a full PostgreSQL dump:

docker exec silentsuite-postgres pg_dumpall -U silentsuite > backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).sql

Or back up only the SilentSuite database:

docker exec silentsuite-postgres pg_dump -U silentsuite silentsuite > backup-silentsuite-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).sql

Back Up the Etebase Data Volume

docker run --rm \
  -v silentsuite_etebase_data:/data \
  -v $(pwd)/backups:/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/etebase-data-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).tar.gz -C /data .

Back Up the .env File

Your .env file contains all secrets. Keep a secure, encrypted copy:

cp .env backups/.env.backup

Automated Backups

For production deployments, set up a cron job:

# Run a full backup daily at 2:00 AM
0 2 * * * cd /path/to/silentsuite.io/self-host && docker exec silentsuite-postgres pg_dumpall -U silentsuite > /path/to/backups/silentsuite-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).sql

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Restore the Database

To restore from a backup, stop the stack, replace the database, and restart:

# Stop all services
docker compose down

# Remove the existing database volume
docker volume rm self-host_pgdata

# Start only PostgreSQL (this recreates the volume and runs init scripts)
docker compose up -d postgres

# Wait for it to be healthy
docker compose exec postgres pg_isready -U silentsuite

# Restore the backup
docker exec -i silentsuite-postgres psql -U silentsuite silentsuite < backup-silentsuite-20260101-020000.sql

# Start the rest of the stack
docker compose up -d

Restore the Etebase Data Volume

docker compose down

docker volume rm self-host_etebase_data
docker volume create self-host_etebase_data

docker run --rm \
  -v self-host_etebase_data:/data \
  -v $(pwd)/backups:/backup \
  alpine tar xzf /backup/etebase-data-20260101-020000.tar.gz -C /data

docker compose up -d