A database backup is only half a recovery plan for a self-hosted app

Description and use

A database backup is only half a recovery plan for a self-hosted app. Full recovery requires preserving encryption keys, release version, roles, background workers, and verifying business workflows.

Problem

A database export alone does not guarantee that a self‑hosted application can be recovered after the original machine disappears.

Outcome

The drill demonstrates that a full recovery requires more than a database export; it must include encryption keys, release version, role restoration, and background worker state, and must be verified against business workflows.

Workflow

• 1. Identify persistent components and record what must survive and how to prove recovery (database, encryption material, release configuration, background work).
• 2. Define success by selecting a small set of reference records and recording their identifiers and expected totals before backup.
• 3. Perform the backup of the database and the secrets directory.
• 4. Restore the backup in a separate, non‑production environment with outbound delivery blocked or routed to test services.
• 5. Verify that the runtime account can perform expected operations and cannot read other tenants’ data.
• 6. Run the reference workflow to confirm that invoices, payments, stock movements, and accounting entries are intact.
• 7. Log backup timestamp, application version, restore start and completion times, reference workflow pass time, encryption and isolation checks, and external delivery state.
• 8. Resolve any documentation conflicts and record mismatches.
• 9. Document remaining gaps and update the recovery checklist.

Evidence

A successful database export answers a narrow question: can the database be copied? It does not answer whether the application can be recovered after the original machine disappears.

Source

Rechvix's public README tells CasaOS operators to preserve both its PostgreSQL data and its secrets directory.

Source

Choose a small set of reference records in a dedicated test installation. For an invoice-and-inventory system, a useful fixture is one finalized invoice, its accounting entries, its stock movements and a customer payment.

Source

Restore there first. Keep the original installation intact. The point of the drill is to learn what recovery needs without turning the exercise into an outage.

Source