Backup & Recovery¶

Comprehensive guide to Dango's backup system — creating, downloading, restoring, and disaster recovery.

Overview¶

Dango provides a layered backup strategy for cloud deployments:

Scheduled backups run daily at 02:00 UTC and upload to DigitalOcean Spaces. On-demand backups can be created at any time.

What Gets Backed Up¶

What Is NOT Backed Up¶

Prerequisites¶

• An active deployment via DigitalOcean or BYOS
• For scheduled backups, download, and restore: DigitalOcean Spaces credentials configured

Quick Reference¶

Creating Backups¶

On-Demand Backup¶

Create a manual backup that uploads directly to Spaces:

dango remote backup

This creates an archive of all data and configuration, uploads it to your Spaces bucket under backups/, and applies your retention policy.

Scheduled Backups¶

Enable daily automated backups at 02:00 UTC:

dango remote backup enable

Check status:

dango remote backup list

Disable if needed:

dango remote backup disable

Automatic Pre-Deploy Backups¶

Before each dango remote push, Dango automatically creates a local backup on the server (stored in /srv/dango/backups/deploy/). These enable fast rollback with dango remote rollback.

Listing Backups¶

List all available backups across both server and Spaces:

dango remote backup list

Example output:

Server backups (on-server):
  backup-2026-07-05-020000.tar.gz   (45 MB, 2026-07-05 02:00)
  backup-2026-07-04-020000.tar.gz   (44 MB, 2026-07-04 02:00)

Spaces backups (off-server):
  backup-2026-07-05-020000.tar.gz   (45 MB, 2026-07-05 02:00)
  backup-2026-07-04-020000.tar.gz   (44 MB, 2026-07-04 02:00)
  backup-2026-07-03-020000.tar.gz   (43 MB, 2026-07-03 02:00)

Downloading Backups¶

From Spaces¶

Download a specific backup by name:

dango remote backup download backup-2026-07-05-020000.tar.gz

This saves the file to your current directory.

From Server¶

Download the latest on-server backup (useful before destroying a deployment):

dango remote backup download --from-server

This downloads from /srv/dango/backups/deploy/ on the server.

Restoring Backups¶

Restore from Spaces¶

dango remote backup restore backup-2026-07-05-020000.tar.gz

This downloads the backup from Spaces to the server, stops services, restores data, and restarts services.

Restore from Local File¶

If you have a backup file locally (e.g., downloaded before destroying a previous deployment):

dango remote backup restore ./dango-backup-2026-07-05.tar.gz --from-local

This uploads the file to the server and restores from it.

Restore to a New Server¶

When migrating to a new deployment:

1. Deploy a new server with the same project name and region
2. During deployment, choose to reuse the existing Spaces bucket in the wizard
3. After deployment, restore the backup:

   dango remote backup restore backup-2026-07-05-020000.tar.gz
   

Post-Restore Steps¶

After a successful restore, credentials must be reconfigured because they are excluded from backups for security.

1. Reconnect OAuth Sources¶

dango oauth setup

This re-authenticates Google Sheets, Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads.

2. Restore Environment Variables¶

dango remote env list              # Check current variables
dango remote env set KEY VALUE     # Set missing values

Common variables to restore: - API keys for third-party services - Custom SMTP settings - Notification webhook URLs

3. Save a Local Copy¶

dango remote backup download --from-server

Keep a local backup for offline archival.

4. Verify Services¶

dango remote status
dango remote backup verify-metabase

Retention Configuration¶

On-Server Retention¶

Controlled by BackupConfig.on_server_retention in cloud.yml. Default: 1 (only the most recent pre-deploy backup is kept).

Spaces Retention¶

Spaces backups use GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) retention tiers:

Configure via dango remote backup config or by editing cloud.yml:

backup:
  on_server_retention: 1
  spaces_retention:
    daily: 7
    weekly: 4
    monthly: 0

Reusing Spaces Buckets¶

During Deploy¶

The deploy wizard (Step 7) automatically discovers existing dango-backup-* buckets and offers to reuse them:

Spaces buckets in your account:
  1. dango-backup-myproj-nyc1 (12 backups, 450 MB, created 2026-05-15)
  2. Create new bucket → dango-backup-myproj-nyc3

Reusing a bucket preserves existing backups and applies your current retention policy to all contents.

During Destroy¶

By default, dango deploy destroy preserves your Spaces bucket and all backups:

Spaces bucket: my-bucket — will be KEPT (use --delete-spaces to remove)

To delete the bucket and all backups:

dango deploy destroy --delete-spaces

If you keep the bucket and redeploy with the same project name and region, the wizard will offer to reuse it — giving you access to all previous backups on the new server.

Disaster Recovery Checklist¶

1. Download the latest backup from Spaces (if server is unreachable):

   dango remote backup download <name>
   

2. Deploy a new server with the same project name and region:

   dango deploy
   

   Choose "reuse existing bucket" when prompted.

3. Restore the backup to the new server:

   dango remote backup restore ./<backup-file> --from-local
   

4. Reconfigure credentials (see Post-Restore Steps).

5. Verify:

   dango remote status
   dango remote backup verify-metabase
   

Troubleshooting¶

Backup fails with "Spaces credentials not configured"¶

Run dango remote backup enable to add Spaces keys, or check your .env variables:

dango remote env list | grep SPACES

Restore fails with "Insufficient disk space"¶

Check server disk usage:

dango remote status

Free up space by removing old on-server backups or unused Docker images.

Restore succeeds but services won't start¶

Check service status:

dango remote status

Review server logs:

dango remote logs

"No backups found" during destroy¶

Backups may exist in Spaces even if on-server backups have been cleaned up. The destroy prompt now checks both locations. If your server is unreachable but Spaces backups exist, you'll be offered a Spaces download.