Backup Best Practices

Regular Backups

Set up a cron job for regular backups:

0 2 * * * auberge backup create --host my-vps --apps baikal,freshrss,navidrome

Retention Policy

Keep multiple timestamped backups and periodically clean old ones:

# Keep last 7 days, delete older
find ~/.local/share/auberge/backups/my-vps/*/20* -type d -mtime +7 -exec rm -rf {} \;

Test Restores

Periodically test restores to verify backups are working:

auberge backup restore latest --host my-vps --apps baikal --dry-run

Before Major Changes

Always create a backup before running Ansible playbooks or system updates:

auberge backup create --host my-vps
auberge ansible run --host my-vps --tags baikal

Music Files

By default, Navidrome backups exclude music files to save space. Only include music when:

• Migrating to a new VPS
• Your music library changed significantly
• You don’t have another backup of your music

# Normal backup (excludes music)
auberge backup create --host my-vps

# Full backup including music
auberge backup create --host my-vps --include-music

Restore has no matching flag: a backup that holds music restores it, one that doesn’t can’t. rsync --delete applies, so restoring a music-bearing backup over a library that has grown since removes the newer files — check --dry-run first, which lists the paths per app.

Off-Site Backups

The default backup location is ~/.local/share/auberge/backups/. Consider:

• Syncing to external drive
• Cloud storage (encrypted)
• Network-attached storage

# Custom backup destination
auberge backup create --host my-vps --dest /mnt/external/backups

SSH Key Management

Ensure your SSH keys are backed up separately. Auberge uses:

• ~/.config/auberge/hosts.toml - Host configuration
• ~/.ssh/identities/ - SSH keys

Back up these directories along with application data.