Vackup: Backup and Restore Docker Volumes

This is now an Official Docker Desktop Extension called "Volumes Backup & Share" which has more features, but I'll keep this repository for reference.

Vackup: (contraction of "volume backup")

Easily backup and restore Docker volumes using either tarballs or container images. It's designed for running from any host/container where you have the docker CLI.

Note that for open files like databases, it's usually better to use their preferred backup tool to create a backup file, but if you stored that file on a Docker volume, this could still be a way you get the Docker volume into a image or tarball for moving to remote storage for safe keeping.

export/import commands copy files between a local tarball and a volume. For making volume backups and restores.

save/load commands copy files between an image and a volume. For when you want to use image registries as a way to push/pull volume data.

Usage:

vackup export VOLUME FILE Creates a gzip'ed tarball in current directory from a volume

vackup import FILE VOLUME Extracts a gzip'ed tarball into a volume

vackup save VOLUME IMAGE Copies the volume contents to a busybox image in the /volume-data directory

vackup load IMAGE VOLUME Copies /volume-data contents from an image to a volume

vackup backup-container CONTAINER DIR Backs up the configuration and volumes of a container to a directory If no container is specified, backs up all non-blacklisted containers

vackup backup-all DIR Backs up all non-blacklisted containers to a directory

vackup backup-all DIR [--hourly|--daily|--weekly] Backs up all non-blacklisted containers with retention policy:

• --hourly: Keeps last 6 hourly backups
• --daily: Keeps last 3 daily backups
• --weekly: Keeps last 2 weekly backups

vackup restore-container DIR CONTAINER Restores the configuration and volumes of a container from a directory

Backup Retention

The script supports different backup retention policies that can be specified when running backup-all:

• Hourly backups: Keeps the last 6 hourly backups
• Daily backups: Keeps the last 3 daily backups
• Weekly backups: Keeps the last 2 weekly backups

Example usage:

# Create hourly backup and maintain last 6 hourly backups
vackup backup-all /backup/dir --hourly

# Create daily backup and maintain last 3 daily backups
vackup backup-all /backup/dir --daily

# Create weekly backup and maintain last 2 weekly backups
vackup backup-all /backup/dir --weekly

The backup directories will be named according to the retention type:

• Hourly: hourly_YYYY-MM-DD_HH
• Daily: daily_YYYY-MM-DD
• Weekly: weekly_YYYY-MM-DD

Container Blacklist

You can exclude specific containers from being backed up by adding them to the BLACKLISTED_CONTAINERS array in the script. For example:

BLACKLISTED_CONTAINERS=(
    "container1"
    "container2"
)

Install

Download the vackup file in this repository to your local machine in your shell path and make it executable.

sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ryahn/docker-vackup/refs/heads/main/vackup -o /usr/local/bin/vackup && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/vackup

Error conditions

If any of the commands fail, the script will check to see if a VACKUP_FAILURE_SCRIPT environment variable is set. If so it will run it and pass the line number the error happened on and the exit code from the failed command. Eg,

# /opt/bin/vackup-failed.sh
LINE_NUMBER=$1
EXIT_CODE=$2
send_slack_webhook "Vackup failed on line number ${LINE_NUMBER} with exit code ${EXIT_CODE}!"

export VACKUP_FAILURE_SCRIPT=/opt/bin/vackup-failed.sh
./vackup export ......