---
id: backups
title: Backups
sidebar_label: Backups
---

Two things matter: **MongoDB** and **`KEY_ENCRYPTION_KEY`**. A backup missing
either one restores to something unusable.

## What holds what

| Store                | Contents                                                                                                      | Back up                                           |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| MongoDB              | Everything durable: servers, keys, assignments, workflows, runs and their logs, monitors, incidents, secrets, settings, audit | **Yes**                          |
| Redis                | Sessions only                                                                                                 | No. Losing it signs everyone out and nothing else |
| `KEY_ENCRYPTION_KEY` | Not stored anywhere by the app                                                                                | **Yes, separately**                               |

:::danger The database alone is not a backup
Private keys, vault secrets, OIDC client secrets and console credentials are
encrypted with `KEY_ENCRYPTION_KEY`, which lives in your environment file and
nowhere in the database. Restore the database without it and every one of those
values is permanently unreadable.

Store the key somewhere other than the server it protects.
:::

:::info Use `vantagectl`
[**Backup and restore**](./backup-and-restore.md) is the supported way to take
and restore a backup. It writes an archive that carries a fingerprint of
`KEY_ENCRYPTION_KEY` — never the key — so a restore taken with the wrong key
**refuses** rather than silently producing a database whose secrets nobody can
read. It also checksums every archive member before writing anything, and
refuses to restore into a database that already holds data. A plain
`mongodump` does none of that: it records nothing about which key the data was
encrypted under, so a restore from one succeeds even when the key is wrong and
the failure only shows up later, as unreadable secrets.

The rest of this page, past the table above, describes the `mongodump` /
`mongorestore` fallback for an operator who does not have `vantagectl`
available. Prefer the linked page.
:::

## Backing up MongoDB (fallback, without `vantagectl`)

With the bundled Mongo container:

```bash
docker compose exec -T mongo mongodump --archive --gzip --db vantage \
  > /backups/vantage-$(date +%F).archive.gz
```

:::warning
This archive records nothing about which `KEY_ENCRYPTION_KEY` it was taken
under. Restoring it with the wrong key produces a database that looks intact
and is not — every secret in it is silently unreadable until something tries
to decrypt one.
:::

Restoring:

```bash
docker compose exec -T mongo mongorestore --archive --gzip --drop \
  < /backups/vantage-2026-07-28.archive.gz
```

`--drop` replaces existing collections. Stop the `server` container first, so
nothing writes during the restore.

## Backing up the environment file

```bash
cp /opt/vantage/.env /secure-location/vantage.env
```

Treat it as a credential in its own right, since it holds the encryption key.

## What a restore gives you

Everything: server, keys, assignments, workflows and their history, monitors and
incidents, secrets, settings and the audit log.

What it does **not** do is reconcile the world. After a restore:

- Agents reconnect with their existing tokens, since the token hashes are in the
  database.
- If the restore is older than an enrolment, that server's token hash is missing
  and the agent will fail to authenticate. Re-enrol it.
- The next agent poll rewrites `authorized_keys` to match the restored desired
  state, which may remove keys added since the backup.

## A workable schedule

| What              | When                                                  |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| Backup            | Nightly, retained per your policy                     |
| Environment file  | On change, held in a password manager or secret store |
| Restore rehearsal | Occasionally, into a throwaway host                   |

Rehearse a restore now and again. It is the step most often skipped, and the one
that finds the problems. See [Backup and restore](./backup-and-restore.md) for
the drill, and for `verify`, which checks a backup is real without a restore.

## Cloud instances

We back these up. You do not need to.