Backup & restore

What to back up

Only the storage/ directory. That’s it.

It holds the SQLite database (storage/database/dreeve.db) and the images and files the app generates (storage/files/). Your original .fit, .tcx and .gpx files are stored inside the database, so there is nothing else to keep separately.

Your docker-compose.yml and .env are configuration, not data, but keeping a copy makes a restore quicker.

Make a backup

Run the backup command:

> docker compose exec app bin/console app:backup:create

It writes one dreeve-<date>-<time>.tar.zst file to the backups/ directory, holding a snapshot of the database and the files in storage/ (logs excluded). It keeps the 7 most recent backups and deletes older ones.

Schedule nightly backups

To make a backup every night, enable the Local backup task in Admin panel → Settings → Daemon.

Mount the backups directory

Backups are written to /var/www/backups inside the container. Add ./backups:/var/www/backups to the app and daemon services, see Installation.

Restore a backup

Stop Dreeve, restore the backup in a one-off container and start it again:

> docker compose stop app daemon
> docker compose run --rm app bin/console app:backup:restore dreeve-2026-01-01-030000.tar.zst
> docker compose up -d

Pass the file name of a backup in the backups/ directory. The command asks for confirmation first.

The restore replaces the database and overwrites the files in storage/ with the ones from the backup. Logs aren’t part of a backup and aren’t touched.

Move to a new server

Install Dreeve on the new server first and start it once with docker compose up -d. Then copy the backup into its backups/ directory and follow the steps in Restore a backup.