Skip to content

### Backup

#### Manual

You can use the provided script `helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh` to backup mailcow automatically.

Please do not copy this script to another location.

To run a backup, write "backup" as first parameter and either one or more components to backup as following parameters. You can also use "all" as second parameter to backup all components. Append `--delete-days n` to delete backups older than n days.

    # Syntax:
    # ./helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup (vmail|crypt|redis|rspamd|postfix|mysql|all|--delete-days)

    # Backup all, delete backups older than 3 days
    ./helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup all --delete-days 3

    # Backup vmail, crypt and mysql data, delete backups older than 30 days
    ./helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup vmail crypt mysql --delete-days 30

    # Backup vmail
    ./helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup vmail

The script will ask you for a backup location. Inside of this location it will create folders in the format "mailcow_DATE". You should not rename those folders to not break the restore process.

To run a backup unattended, define MAILCOW_BACKUP_LOCATION as environment variable before starting the script:

    MAILCOW_BACKUP_LOCATION=/opt/backup /opt/mailcow-dockerized/helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup all

#### Cronjob

You can run the backup script regularly via cronjob. Make sure `BACKUP_LOCATION` exists:

    5 4 * * * cd /opt/mailcow-dockerized/; MAILCOW_BACKUP_LOCATION=/mnt/mailcow_backups /opt/mailcow-dockerized/helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup mysql crypt redis --delete-days 3

Per default cron sends the full result of each backup operation by email. If you want cron to only mail on error (non-zero exit code) you may want to use the following snippet. Pathes need to be modified according to your setup (this script is a user contribution).

This following script may be placed in `/etc/cron.daily/mailcow-backup` - do not forget to mark it as executable via `chmod +x`:

    #!/bin/sh

    # Backup mailcow data
    # https://mailcow.github.io/mailcow-dockerized-docs/b_n_r_backup/

    set -e

    OUT="$(mktemp)"
    export MAILCOW_BACKUP_LOCATION="/opt/backup"
    SCRIPT="/opt/mailcow-dockerized/helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh"
    PARAMETERS="backup all"
    OPTIONS="--delete-days 30"

    # run command
    set +e
    "${SCRIPT}" ${PARAMETERS} ${OPTIONS} 2>&1 > "$OUT"
    RESULT=$?

    if [ $RESULT -ne 0 ]
        then
                echo "${SCRIPT} ${PARAMETERS} ${OPTIONS} encounters an error:"
                echo "RESULT=$RESULT"
                echo "STDOUT / STDERR:"
                cat "$OUT"
    fi

# Backup strategy with rsync and mailcow backup script

Create the destination directory for mailcows helper script:

    mkdir -p /external_share/backups/backup_script

Create cronjobs:

    25 1 * * * rsync -aH --delete /opt/mailcow-dockerized /external_share/backups/mailcow-dockerized
    40 2 * * * rsync -aH --delete /var/lib/docker/volumes /external_share/backups/var_lib_docker_volumes
    5 4 * * * cd /opt/mailcow-dockerized/; BACKUP_LOCATION=/external_share/backups/backup_script /opt/mailcow-dockerized/helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup mysql crypt redis --delete-days 3
    # If you want to, use the acl util to backup permissions of some/all folders/files: getfacl -Rn /path

On the destination (in this case `/external_share/backups`) you may want to have snapshot capabilities (ZFS, Btrfs etc.). Snapshot daily and keep for n days for a consistent backup. Do not rsync to a Samba share, you need to keep the correct permissions!

To restore you'd simply need to run rsync the other way round and restart Docker to re-read the volumes. Run `docker-compose pull` and `docker-compose up -d`.

If you are lucky Redis and MariaDB can automatically fix the inconsistent databases (if they are inconsistent). In case of a corrupted database you'd need to use the helper script to restore the inconsistent elements. If a restore fails, try to extract the backups and copy the files back manually. Keep the file permissions!

Last update: 2022-01-30 16:17:22
Back to top