Backup & Restore

Protect your self-hosted SilentSuite data with regular backups.

What to Back Up

Item	Why
PostgreSQL database	All encrypted sync data and user accounts
Server data volume	Server secret key and media files. If you lose the secret key, existing encrypted data becomes unrecoverable.
.env file	Contains all passwords and configuration

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Back Up the Database

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

Back Up the Server Data Volume

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

Note: The volume name depends on the directory name where docker-compose.yml lives. If you cloned to the default location, it will be self-host_server_data. Check with docker volume ls | grep server_data.

Back Up the .env File

cp .env backups/.env.backup

Automated Backups

Set up a daily cron job:

crontab -e

Add:

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

For off-site backups, use rsync, rclone, or your preferred tool to copy the backup directory to another server.

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Restore the Database

# Stop all services
docker compose down

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

# Start only PostgreSQL
docker compose up -d postgres

# Wait for it to be ready
sleep 10
docker compose exec postgres pg_isready -U silentsuite

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

# Start the server
docker compose up -d

Restore the Server Data Volume

docker compose down

docker volume rm self-host_server_data
docker volume create self-host_server_data

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

docker compose up -d

Test Your Backups

Backups you've never restored from are not backups. Periodically verify by restoring to a test instance.