Backups

TheTerms stores all data in PostgreSQL. Redis is used for caching only — it can be rebuilt from PostgreSQL data and does not need to be backed up separately.

PostgreSQL Backup

Manual backup with pg_dump

docker compose exec postgres pg_dump -U postgres theterms > backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).sql

This creates a plain SQL dump in your current directory.

Restore from backup

docker compose exec -T postgres psql -U postgres theterms < backup-2026-01-01-120000.sql

Automated daily backups with cron

Create /usr/local/bin/theterms-backup.sh:

#!/bin/bash
BACKUP_DIR="/opt/theterms-backups"
COMPOSE_DIR="/opt/theterms"  # path to your cloned repo

mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"

docker compose -f "$COMPOSE_DIR/docker-compose.yml" exec -T postgres \
  pg_dump -U postgres theterms \
  | gzip > "$BACKUP_DIR/theterms-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).sql.gz"

# Keep only the last 30 days of backups
find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.sql.gz" -mtime +30 -delete

Make it executable and add a cron job:

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/theterms-backup.sh
crontab -e

Add this line to run daily at 2 AM:

0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/theterms-backup.sh >> /var/log/theterms-backup.log 2>&1

Docker Volume Backup

As an alternative or supplement, back up the Docker volume directly:

docker run --rm \
  -v theterms_postgres_data:/data \
  -v $(pwd):/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/postgres-volume-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /data .

Redis

Redis is configured with --appendonly yes (AOF persistence). Data is written to the redis_data Docker volume. Since Redis only caches session data that can be reconstructed, you do not need to back up Redis.

If you stop and restart Redis, sessions will be invalidated and users will need to log in again.

Recommended Schedule

What	Frequency	Retention
PostgreSQL dump	Daily	30 days
Docker volume backup	Weekly	4 weeks
Off-site copy	Daily	7 days minimum

Store backups off-site (S3, Backblaze B2, or another server) for disaster recovery.