Backups

What to copy

Two things, and they must be taken together:

1. The database, at DB_PATH. It holds the folder tree, ownership, permissions, versions, shares, sessions, and the activity log.
2. The library, at LIBRARY_PATH. It holds the actual bytes.

A library without its database is a directory of files named after their checksums. A database without its library is a catalogue of things that are not there. Neither alone is a backup.

The easy way

localdrive backup /path/to/backups

This writes a timestamped folder containing both. It is a plain copy, no rsync required, so it works the same on Windows and Linux.

As a scheduled job

Linux, in a crontab:

15 3 * * * /usr/local/bin/localdrive backup /mnt/backup/localdrive

Windows, as a Task Scheduler action running localdrive backup D:\Backups.

scripts/backup.sh is also available, which uses SQLite's VACUUM INTO for the database and rsync for the library where those are present.

Restoring

1. Stop the server: localdrive stop.
2. Put the database file back at DB_PATH.
3. Put the library directory back at LIBRARY_PATH.
4. Start it: localdrive start.

With a combined drive

A pooled library adds capacity, not redundancy. If one member drive fails, the files that happened to land on it are gone while the rest keep working. That makes backups more important with a pool in use, not less.