Postgres Automatic Backups

If you run your FileFlows database in Postgres using Docker, a simple way to keep it backed up is to run postgres-backup-local alongside it.

It dumps the database on a schedule, and automatically keeps a rolling set of daily, weekly and monthly backups.

Docker Compose

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:17
    container_name: postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: change-me
    ports:
      - 5432:5432
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U postgres"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  pgbackups:
    image: prodrigestivill/postgres-backup-local:17
    restart: unless-stopped
    user: postgres:postgres
    volumes:
      - ./backups:/backups
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      TZ: Etc/UTC
      POSTGRES_HOST: postgres
      POSTGRES_DB: FileFlows
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: change-me
      SCHEDULE: "@daily"
      BACKUP_ON_START: "TRUE"
      BACKUP_KEEP_DAYS: 10
      BACKUP_KEEP_WEEKS: 4
      BACKUP_KEEP_MONTHS: 6

Change the following to suit your setup:

Setting	Description
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Set a strong password, and use the same value in both services.
POSTGRES_DB	The name of your FileFlows database, FileFlows by default.
TZ	Your timezone, e.g. America/New_York, so backups run at local midnight.
./backups	Where backups are stored on the host. Ideally point this at another disk or a NAS, so a disk failure does not take out both the database and its backups.
postgres:17 / :17	Keep the backup image tag the same as your Postgres major version.

Prepare the Backup Folder

The backup container runs as the postgres user (user: postgres:postgres) rather than root, which is recommended for security. That user has the ID 999, so create the backup folder and give it ownership before starting the containers:

mkdir -p ./backups && sudo chown -R 999:999 ./backups

warning

The backup folder must be on a filesystem that supports hardlinks and symlinks, such as a local disk or an NFS share. SMB/CIFS shares (Windows shares) and FAT/exFAT drives will not work.

Backup Schedule

Setting	Description
SCHEDULE	When to run a backup. @daily runs at midnight, a cron expression such as 0 3 * * * (3am) also works.
BACKUP_ON_START	Run a backup as soon as the container starts, handy to confirm everything is working.
BACKUP_KEEP_DAYS	Number of daily backups to keep.
BACKUP_KEEP_WEEKS	Number of weekly backups to keep.
BACKUP_KEEP_MONTHS	Number of monthly backups to keep.

With the settings above you will always have the last 10 days, the last 4 weeks and the last 6 months of backups available.

Check It Is Working

Start the containers and check the backup log:

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs pgbackups

Your backup folder should now contain:

backups/
  last/FileFlows-20261027-000000.sql.gz
  last/FileFlows-latest.sql.gz
  daily/FileFlows-20261027.sql.gz
  weekly/FileFlows-202644.sql.gz
  monthly/FileFlows-202610.sql.gz

last/FileFlows-latest.sql.gz always points to the most recent backup.

Restoring a Backup

1. Stop the FileFlows server so nothing writes to the database while restoring.

2. Recreate an empty database:

   docker exec -it postgres psql -U postgres -c 'DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS "FileFlows";'
   docker exec -it postgres psql -U postgres -c 'CREATE DATABASE "FileFlows";'

3. Restore the backup:

   gunzip -c ./backups/last/FileFlows-latest.sql.gz | docker exec -i postgres psql -U postgres -d FileFlows

4. Start the FileFlows server.

warning

Test a restore at least once, to a spare database name if you prefer. A backup is only useful if you know it restores.