Create payloads (fylr backup)

This page describes the process of creating a local backup of JSON payloads from a source instance

The fylr backup command performs GET requests to the API of the source instance, until all relevant base types and records are retrieved and stored in local files.

A basic backup command looks like this:

fylr backup \
  --server '<source-url>/api/v1/' \
  --login 'root' \
  --password '<cleartext>' \
  --dir '<instance folder>/' \
  --compression 9 \
  --purge

--server, --login and --password refer to the source server.

--purge deletes a backup in --dir in case there is already one. All existing files in this directory are deleted!

The backup over the API only stores the data in local files. The files are only referenced by URLs. Only during restoring, the files are loaded from the source instance. Until the restore is finished, the source instance still needs to be reachable.

Parameters

This is a complete overview of the command line parameters (run fylr backup -h):

Usage: fylr backup [flags]

Backup ez5 or FYLR via API

Flags:

-h, --help                       Show context-sensitive help.
-v, --verbose                    Set to true, to show additional info.
-n, --log-network                Set to true, to log all network traffic.
    --server=STRING              Source url (overwrites URL of source instance from config)
-l, --login=STRING               If --server is set, use as login. Make sure to use the system root user to connect if used together with --purge.
-p, --password=STRING            If --server is set, use as password
    --client-id=STRING           If --server is set, use as OAUTH2 client ID
    --client-secret=STRING       If --server is set, use as OAUTH2 client secret
    --client-token-url=STRING    If --server is set, use as OAUTH2 token url
    --insecure                   Set to true, to not verify the server's certificate chain and host name
    --log=STRING                 Set output to logfile
    --purge                      For backup: set to true, to purge the target directory. For restore: set to true, to purge the target and copy the datamodel. The current password of the user used for the login will be set for the system root user.
    --continue                   Set to true, to continue.
    --limit=INT                  Limit records. Set to 0 for unlimited.
    --chunk=100                  chunk size for fetching/pushing data.
    --include-events=STRING      Comma separated list of event types. Use "-" to skip backup/restoring of events.
-d, --dir=STRING                 Target directory.
    --size=100                   Size of .json files.
    --compression=0              0: no compression, 1: speed, 9: best.
    --all-versions               Set to true, to request all versions of an object.
    --include=STRING             Filter regexp to include objecttypes.
    --retry-max-count=10         Number of retries for failed requests with network problems.
    --retry-sleep-between=30     Wait time in seconds between retries for failed requests.

--dir

Target folder for the backup files. If it does not exist, it will be created. If it exists, and --purge is used, an existing folder is deleted and created new.

• this parameter is mandatory!

• type: string

--server

API Url of the source instance. The Url must include the API base endpoint, for fylr this is <source url>/api/v1.

• this parameter is mandatory!

• type: string

--login

Username of the user in the source instance. It should be a user with root rights or sufficient read rights.

• this parameter is mandatory!

• type: string

--password

Password of the user in the source instance.

• this parameter is mandatory!

• type: string

--purge

Defines the mode of the backup (purge or continue).

If this is true, the complete backup starts from the beginning, and an existing backup folder with the same name is purged.

The parameters --purge and --continue are mutually exclusive. Not both can be true.

If the target folder already exists, this parameter (or --continue) must be set, otherwise the backup will fail.

• type: bool

• default: false

--continue

Defines the mode of the backup (purge or continue).

If this is true, the backup continues from the last point in the manifest.json file, if a previous backup run was interrupted.

The parameters --purge and --continue are mutually exclusive. Not both can be true.

If the target folder already exists, this parameter (or --purge) must be set, otherwise the backup will fail.

• type: bool

• default: false

--size

The target size for objects in payloads. The effective size of the generated payloads is limited by --chunk.

• type: int

• minimum: 1

• maximum: 1000

• default: 100

--chunk

The requested size for objects from the source instance. Can be used to control the size of the responses. It can be lowered if the requests cause timeouts or network problems.

• type: int

• minimum: 1

• maximum: 1000

• default: 100

--limit

Set this to a number bigger than 0 to limit the number of objects of each objecttype. This can be used to test or debug, and can be combined with --include to only backup a small sample of the source instance.

• type: int

• minimum: 0

• default: 0

--compression

GZIP compression level.

If 0 is selected, there is no compression and the payloads are stored as .json files. If a value bigger than 0 is selected, the payloads are stored as compressed .json.gz files.

• type: int

• minimum: 0

• maximum: 9

• default: 0

--all-versions

Set to true so that all history versions of the records are requested.

Not to be confused with asset versions (see parameters for fylr restore)!

• type: bool

• default: false

--include

If this is a valid non empty regex string, only objecttypes are backupped where the internal objecttype name matches the regex.

• type: string

--include-events

Comma separated list of event types.

Use --include-events=- to skip backup of events.

If this parameter is unset, all events are backupped

Specific event types, which are irrelevant for the migration, are never in the backup, even if they are specifically requested.

For now, this includes OBJECT_INDEX, but this might be extended in the future.

• type: string

• default: ""

--retry-max-count

If a request fails with one of the following HTTP status codes that indicate network problems, the request is repeated for a maximum number of times: 502: Bad Gateway, 503: Service Unavailable, 504: Gateway Timeout

• type: int

• default: 10

--retry-sleep-between

Defines the waiting time in seconds between repeated failed requests.

• type: int

• default: 30

--client-id

If the source instance uses OAuth2 for user authentication, this is the configured Client ID.

• type: string

--client-secret

If the source instance uses OAuth2 for user authentication, this is the configured Client Secret. Can be kept empty if the instance is public.

• type: string

--client-token-url

If the source instance uses OAuth2 for user authentication, this is the OAuth2 callback endpoint of the instance. For fylr this is <source url>/api/oauth2/token.

• type: string

--insecure

This parameter is available in fylr from version v6.14.0.

Set to true to skip the certificate check for the connection to the source instance.

Only use this option if you can trust the remote server!

• type: bool

• default: false

--verbose

Set to true to log debugging info.

• type: bool

• default: false

--log-network

Set to true to log the requests and responses.

• type: bool

• default: false

--log

If this is a valid file path, the log output is written to this file. If this is empty (default), the log output is written to stdout instead.

• type: string