How can I easily verify I actually have working backups?

[yeku]

TL;DR Once a day, can my laptop running several Cloudron applications connect to my Hetzner VPS (running the same Cloudron applications) so that the Cloudron applications on my laptop will display the same data as the Cloudron applications on my Hetzner VPS?

I want to easily be able to verify I actually have working backups. In other words, I don’t want to find myself in the unenviable position of having my server go down, only to find out that I didn’t have working backups.

Because I have an old laptop computer sitting around gathering dust I wondered if there’s an easy way to do the following…

1. Install several Cloudron applications on my Hetzner VPS.
2. Install those same Cloudron applications on my dusty old laptop.
3. Once a day, have my laptop connect to my Hetzner VPS, transfer the relevant data, and then, using some DevOps magic (or perhaps even a simple bash script), update itself so that at that instant, my Hetzner VPS and my laptop would have the same data for the Cloudron applications indicated above.
4. Then I would like to login to my Hetzner VPS, so that I could find some data, used by one of the Cloudron applications I had installed, that had changed within the last 24 hours.
5. Then I would like to login to my laptop (from within my home network), so that I could verify that my laptop had the same data mentioned in the previous step.

For example, let’s say I had been using Nextcloud on Tuesday morning. Let’s say that Tuesday night I was to say to myself, “Let me see if document XYZ which I created earlier today on my Nextcloud running on my Hetzner VPS is on my Nextcloud running on my laptop.”

If I were to find document XYZ on my laptop and successfully open document XYZ on my laptop, then I would be confident that my data on my laptop used by Nextcloud was up-to-date. However, if I failed to find document XYZ on my laptop, then I would be concerned that my data on my laptop used by Nextcloud was not up-to-date.

Finally, for three Cloudron applications or more, I presume the above scenario would require me to have two premium Cloudron accounts: one for my Hetzner VPS and one for my laptop.

[scooke]

@yeku Free versions of Cloudron allow for 2 apps, so you can easily test this out. Unless your main backup has more than 2 apps. But since your main focus seems to be Nextcloud, the free versions ought to be enough. Good luck.

[fbartels]

Hi @yeku,

yes there are ways to verify your backups, but no not in the way you are describing.

This is described at https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#dry-run

Basically:

• you install a machine for your cloudron (could be a virtual machine, maybe you even always just return to a certain snapshots of the VM itself)
• you click through the wizard and perform a restore from within cloudron
• you verify the restored data
• you thrown your machine away and restart the process

Something like a cold standby that you can just update with the latest data is not possible.

[yeku]

@fbartels said in How can I easily verify I actually have working backups?:

Hi @yeku,
yes there are ways to verify your backups, but no not in the way you are describing.
This is described at https://docs.cloudron.io/backups/#dry-run
Basically:

you install a machine for your cloudron (could be a virtual machine, maybe you even always just return to a certain snapshots of the VM itself)
you click through the wizard and perform a restore from within cloudron
you verify the restored data
you thrown your machine away and restart the process

Something like a cold standby that you can just update with the latest data is not possible.

Thank you very much. That sounds like it would work very well for me.

I urge you to consider creating a screencast of the process, uploading it to YouTube (or another streaming provider), and then linking to that video from somewhere like Cloudron Docs -> Guides -> Verify your backups.

I imagine the link might be....

https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/verify-your-backups-can-be-restored

From a marketing perspective, it's crucial to explain to Cloudron users and prospective Cloudron users that they can quickly and easily verify/restore their backups. It will give them peace of mind.

[yeku]

@girish

is an example of the type of screencast I urge you to create.

If you guys are too busy, you could probably get a very good screencast made for ≈25 US dollars on a site such as Fiverr.com. In such a case you might send a message such as the following to Fiverr sellers (Fiverr "freelancers") whom you had identified as good prospects...

"Here's an example of the type of screencast we want.

. We intend to upload it to YouTube. We intend to link to it from Cloudron Docs -> Guides -> Verify your backups https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/verify-your-backups-can-be-restored."

Of course you would first need to create https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/verify-your-backups-can-be-restored so that the Fiverr sellers you contact can clearly understand what you need them to do.

[fbartels]

@yeku the people that officially belong to the cloudron company have a "staff" label, i am "just a customer" as well (ok and I packed some apps that i wanted to use myself).

[yeku]

@fbartels Oh sorry about that. Thanks for clarifying that.