Quickstart¶

Five minutes from zero to a restorable, encrypted backup. This walkthrough uses a local directory repository; swap the backend for S3/GCS/Azure later without touching anything else — see Storage backends.

1. Configure¶

# settings.py
import os

RECOVERY = {
    "BACKEND": "django_recovery.backends.LocalBackend",
    "OPTIONS": {
        "path": "/var/backups/myapp-restic",
    },
    "PASSWORD": os.environ["RESTIC_PASSWORD"],
    "DATABASES": ["default"],   # DATABASES aliases to back up
    "MEDIA": False,             # also back up settings.MEDIA_ROOT
    "TAGS": ["prod"],           # extra tags added to every snapshot
}

The backend class builds everything the restic subprocess needs — repository URL and credential environment — from OPTIONS. Pull secrets into OPTIONS however you like: os.environ, django-environ, a secrets manager.

The repository password is unrecoverable

Losing it means losing the backups — no reset, no backdoor. Store it durably and separately from the repository.

2. Initialize the repository (once)¶

python manage.py recovery init

3. Back up¶

python manage.py recovery backup

4. Inspect¶

python manage.py recovery snapshots

1a2b3c4d    2026-07-15T02:00:01Z    db:default,prod    /default.sql

5. Restore (when the day comes)¶

python manage.py recovery restore --snapshot latest --database default

You'll be asked to type the database alias to confirm — restore overwrites the target database. A tag guard also refuses to load a snapshot into a database it wasn't taken from. Details in Management commands.

6. Schedule it¶

django-recovery does not run itself. Drive it from cron or Celery beat:

0 2 * * *  cd /app && python manage.py recovery backup

Thanks to deduplication, more frequent backups cost little extra — see Why django-recovery.