Backups protect you from accidental deletion, bad deploys, and application-level data corruption.
What to back up
For each production database, plan for:
- Full database backups.
- Point-in-time recovery where available.
- Schema migration history.
- Application secrets needed to reconnect.
- A tested restore process.
Export a backup
For manual exports, use pg_dump from a trusted machine:
pg_dump "$DATABASE_URL" > layerrail-backup.sql
gzip layerrail-backup.sql
Restore a dump
gunzip layerrail-backup.sql.gz
psql "$DATABASE_URL" < layerrail-backup.sql
Restoring into an existing database can overwrite or duplicate data depending on the dump format. Test restores in a staging database first.
Production checklist
- Know the recovery time objective for the app.
- Test restores before you need them.
- Store backups outside the application VM.
- Restrict who can download backups.
- Keep audit logs for backup access.
