@title Configuring Backups
@group config

Advice for backing up Phabricator.

= Overview =

Phabricator does not currently have a comprehensive backup system, but creating
backups is not particularly difficult and Phabricator does have a few basic
tools which can help you set up a reasonable process. In particular, the things
which needs to be backed up are:

  - the MySQL databases;
  - uploaded files; and
  - your Phabricator configuration files.

This document discusses approaches for backing up this data.

= Backup: MySQL Databases =

Most of Phabricator's data is stored in MySQL, and it's the most important thing
to back up. You can run `bin/storage dump` to get a dump of all the MySQL
databases. This is a convenience script which just runs a normal `mysqldump`
of every database Phabricator owns.

Since most of this data is compressible, it may be helpful to run it through
gzip prior to storage. For example:

  phabricator/ $ ./bin/storage dump | gzip > backup.sql.gz

Then store the backup somewhere safe, like in a box buried under an old tree
stump. No one will ever think to look for it there.

= Restore: MySQL =

To restore a MySQL dump, just pipe it to `mysql` on a clean host. (You may need
to uncompress it first, if you compressed it prior to storage.)

  $ gunzip -c backup.sql.gz | mysql

= Backup: Uploaded Files =

Uploaded files may be stored in several different locations. The backup
procedure depends on where files are stored:

**Default / MySQL**: Under the default configuration, uploaded files are stored
in MySQL, so the MySQL backup will include all files. In this case, you don't
need to do any additional work.

**Amazon S3**: If you use Amazon S3, redundancy and backups are built in to the
service. This is probably sufficient for most installs. If you trust Amazon with
your data //except not really//, you can backup your S3 bucket outside of
Phabricator.

**Local Disk**: If you use the local disk storage engine, you'll need to back up
files manually. You can do this by creating a copy of the root directory where
you told Phabricator to put files (the `storage.local-disk.path` configuration
setting).

For more information about configuring how files are stored, see
@{article:Configuring File Storage}.

= Restore: Uploaded Files =

To restore a backup of local disk storage, just copy the backup into place.

= Backup: Configuration Files =

You should also backup your configuration files, and any scripts you use to
deploy or administrate Phabricator (like a customized upgrade script). The best
way to do this is to check them into a private repository somewhere and just use
whatever backup process you already have in place for repositories. Just copying
them somewhere will work fine too, of course.

= Restore: Configuration Files =

To restore configuration files, just copy them into the right locations.

= Security =

MySQL dumps have no builtin encryption and most data in Phabricator is stored in
a raw, accessible form, so giving a user access to backups is a lot like giving
them shell access to the machine Phabricator runs on. In particular, a user who
has the backups can:

  - read data that policies do not permit them to see;
  - read email addresses and object secret keys; and
  - read other users' session and conduit tokens and impersonate them.

Some of this information is durable, so disclosure of even a very old backup may
present a risk. If you restrict access to the Phabricator host or database, you
should also restrict access to the backups.

= Next Steps =

Continue by:

  - returning to the @{article:Configuration Guide}.
