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Backups

The system backs up databases automatically on a rolling schedule. You can also back up and download databases on demand.

Rolling schedule

  • A backup pass runs on an interval (default daily). A catch-up pass runs shortly after the control plane starts.
  • The system keeps the newest N backups (default 7). It prunes the oldest each time. This gives a rolling one-week window.
  • The runner produces each backup (pg_dump / mysqldump / Redis RDB). It streams the backup to the control plane. The control plane stores it on disk with a DatabaseBackup record.

Tunables (control-plane env): BACKUP_INTERVAL_HOURS, BACKUP_RETENTION, BACKUP_DIR.

Choosing what to back up

You can restrict a backup to specific schemas/tables. You name them yourself. Althost never inspects the database to enumerate them.

{
  "includeSchemas": ["public"],
  "excludeSchemas": ["internal"],
  "includeTables":  ["public.users"],
  "excludeTables":  ["public.audit_log"]
}

These map straight to pg_dump / mysqldump flags. (MySQL has no schema namespace, so only table filters apply. Redis backups are a whole-dataset snapshot and ignore filters.)

Downloading & restoring

  • On demand: "Back up now" creates a stored backup. A live download streams a fresh dump straight to your browser.
  • Restores are manual. Download a backup and restore it yourself with the engine's normal tooling (psql < dump.sql, mysql < dump.sql, etc.). althost does not perform restores.