Automated Backup and Recovery for Self-Hosted AI Wallets: Docker + CLI Integration

Description and use

Automated backup and recovery workflow for self‑hosted AI wallets using Docker and WAIaaS CLI, providing regular, verifiable backups and a secure recovery path.

Problem

Self-hosted AI wallets risk losing encrypted keys and state if the server fails and no backup strategy exists.

Outcome

The workflow enables regular, verifiable backups of encrypted wallet state and provides a clear recovery path using the master password and backup files.

Workflow

• Install @waiaas/cli globally with npm -g @waiaas/cli
• Run waiaas backup create to snapshot current state
• Run waiaas backup inspect to verify contents
• Run waiaas backup list to view available backups
• Use waiaas restore to recover from a backup file
• Configure Docker Compose with a named volume waiaas-data for persistence
• Use WAIAAS_AUTO_PROVISION to generate a master password and retrieve it via docker exec waiaas cat /data/recovery.key
• Store the recovery.key securely and optionally set a custom master password with waiaas set-master
• Deploy production secrets via docker-compose.secrets.yml to avoid exposing passwords in environment variables

Evidence

WAIaaS stores its state in a data directory (/data inside Docker, ~/.waiaas by default outside it).

Source

The master password — which you either set yourself or auto-generate at first run — is the encryption key for everything inside.

Source

WAIaaS ships with a CLI (@waiaas/cli) that includes dedicated backup tooling as part of its 20 commands.

Source

The auto-provision flow generates a random master password and writes it to recovery.key inside the data directory.

Source