Automated Database Backups with Rclone

This guide explains how to set up automated backups of your Teldrive database to any storage provider supported by Rclone.

Prerequisites

• A configured database from the prerequisites guide
• A cloud storage account with any provider supported by Rclone
• Rclone configured with access to your desired cloud storage

Setting Up Automated Backups

Create a Docker Compose file for the backup service:

docker-compose.yml

services:
  rclone-backup:
    image: teldrive/rclone-backup:17 # for postgres 16 use teldrive/rclone-backup:16
    container_name: rclone-backup
    environment:
      - RCLONE_REMOTE_NAME=remote # use your configured rclone remote name
      - BACKUP_KEEP_DAYS=10 # how many days to keep backup history
      - CRON=0 */6 * * * # backup frequency (every 6 hours in this example)
      - ZIP_ENABLE=true # enable backup compression
      - PG_HOST=postgres # database hostname
      - PG_DBNAME=postgres # database name
      - PG_USERNAME=user # database username
      - PG_PASSWORD=pass # database password
      - ZIP_PASSWORD=zippass # password to protect backup archives
    restart: always
    networks:
     - postgres
    volumes:
      - /path/to/rclone/configdir/:/app/rclone # mount your rclone config directory

networks:
  postgres:                                 
    external: true

NOTE

If you're using Supabase, remove the networks block from the compose file and update the database connection details accordingly.

Start the backup service:

docker compose up -d

Configuration Options

Customize your backup solution further with these environment variables:

Variable	Description	Default
RCLONE_REMOTE_NAME	Name of your Rclone remote	required
BACKUP_KEEP_DAYS	Days to keep backup history	7
CRON	Backup schedule in cron format	"0 0 * * *" (daily)
ZIP_ENABLE	Enable backup compression	false
ZIP_PASSWORD	Password for encrypted backups	empty
PG_HOST	PostgreSQL host	required
PG_DBNAME	PostgreSQL database name	required
PG_USERNAME	PostgreSQL username	required
PG_PASSWORD	PostgreSQL password	required

Verifying Backups

Your backups will be uploaded to your configured Rclone remote according to the schedule. You can verify the backups by:

1. Checking the backup service logs: docker logs rclone-backup
2. Listing your backups in the remote storage: rclone ls remote:path/to/backups

Restoring from Backup

If you need to restore from a backup, you have two options depending on the backup format:

1. Download the latest backup file from your remote storage
2. If compressed, extract the backup file
3. Restore using pg_restore:

   pg_restore --dbname="your_postgres_url" --create --no-owner --disable-triggers backup_file.dump

4. Optional: Add more pg_restore flags as needed:

   # Common additional options:
   # --jobs=N: Use N parallel jobs for restoration (speeds up process)
   # --schema=SCHEMA: Restore only objects in this schema
   # --data-only: Restore only data, not schema
   # --schema-only: Restore only schema, not data

Docker Container Method

If you're running PostgreSQL in a Docker container:

# Copy the backup file into the container
docker cp backup_file.dump postgres_container:/tmp/

docker exec -it postgres_container pg_restore --dbname="your_postgres_url" --create --no-owner --disable-triggers /tmp/backup_file.dump