Docker Volume Backup

docker-volume-backup is a tool which can be deployed alongside other containers.

By specifying certain labels on containers, the docker-volume-backup container will periodically take backups of the specified volumes as .tar.gz archives and store them on in a specified directory on the docker host.

Labels

The possible labels which can be applied to containers to configure backups.

Label	Description	Example
ie.cianhatton.backup.enabled	Marks the container for volume backups.	true
ie.cianhatton.backup.volumes	Comma separated string of volume names to be backed up. (if empty, all volumes will be backed up)	data_volume,config_volume

Note: depending on how your containers are created, the volumes might be named differently. You must ensure that ie.cianhatton.backup.volumes matches the names of the created volumes.

Cobra commands

periodic-backups

Periodically backs up container volumes based on a provided cron schedule.
An archive is created of the volume contents and is copied to the specified host-path.
Any files in the specified directory older than the specified retention-days will be deleted.

This mode is intended to be deployed alongside other containers and left running.

If no volumes are specified under "ie.cianhatton.backup.volumes", all volumes of type
"volume" will be backed up.

Usage:
    docker-volume-backup periodic-backups [flags]

Flags:
    --cron string          cron usage
    -h, --help             help for periodic-backups
    --host-path string     backup host path
    --retention-days int   retention days

create-volume

Creates a docker volume and extracts the contents of the specified archive into it

Usage:
    docker-volume-backup create-volume [flags]

Flags:
    --archive string   host path to archive
    -h, --help         help for create-volume
    --volume string    name of the volume to create/populate

list-backups

List backups that exist in the specified host directory

Usage:
  docker-volume-backup list-backups [flags]

Flags:
  -h, --help               help for list-backups
      --host-path string   backup host path

restore-backups

Restore backups from a directory.

Specify a directory where backups are located (host-path) and a comma separated
list of volumes (vol1,vol2,vol3) etc.

Docker volumes will be created from all of the backups. If there are multiple backups
of the same volume, the newest will be chosen.

Usage:
  docker-volume-backup restore-backups [flags]

Flags:
  -h, --help               help for restore-backups
      --host-path string   backup host path
      --volumes string     comma separated list of volumes to restore, default to all found volumes

Requirements

• The docker-volume-backup must have access to the host docker socket.

See this example

Example

# make some temporary directories
# where docker-volume-backup will create the backups.
export BACKUP_HOST_PATH="$(mktemp -d)"
mkdir -p "${BACKUP_HOST_PATH}/.s3tmp"
# required for audiobookshelf
export AUDIO_BOOKS_DIRECTORY="$(mktemp -d)"
export PODCASTS_DIRECTORY="$(mktemp -d)"

# start the containers
docker compose up -d 

After this, you will notice that every minute (as specified by the cron schedule ) the audiobookshelf is stopped, backups are created of the two specified volumes, and then it is restarted.

we can see the backups with.

ls ${BACKUP_HOST_PATH}

Stop the containers with

docker-compose down