Volume Backups
Schedule automated backups for QuickStack application volumes to S3-compatible storage.
Volume backup schedules run periodically and upload a snapshot of your app's persistent volume to an S3-compatible bucket.
Prerequisites
Configure a volume backup schedule
- Open the app in the Project Canvas and go to Settings → Storage.
- Scroll to Backup Schedules and click Add Backup Schedule.
- Configure:
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cron Expression | When to run | 0 0 * * * (daily midnight) |
| Retention | Number of backups to keep; oldest deleted when exceeded | 7 |
| Volume | Which volume to back up | select from list |
| Backup Location | Which S3 target to use | select from list |
| Backup before deployment | Run this backup automatically before a deployment is applied (see below) | off |
| Fail silently on deployment | Continue the deployment even if this backup fails | off |
- Click Save.
Cron expressions Use crontab.guru to build and verify cron expressions.
Common patterns:
0 0 * * *— daily at midnight0 2 * * *— daily at 2 AM0 0 * * 0— weekly (Sunday midnight)
Manual trigger To test a schedule immediately, click the play icon next to the schedule in the table.
Back up before deployment
Enabling Backup before deployment turns a schedule into a safety net for deployments. Before QuickStack applies a deployment, it runs every matching schedule first:
- Open the app's backup schedule in the Project Canvas (app Backups tab, or Settings → Storage → Backup Schedules).
- Turn on Backup before deployment.
- Optionally turn on Fail silently on deployment.
- Click Save.
Which backups run
The pre-deployment backup covers the app being deployed and every app directly connected to it through a network policy (one hop in either direction, within the same project). This means deploying an app also protects the data of the databases and services it talks to.
Backups run one after another before the deployment starts. Their progress is written to the deployment log.
If a backup fails
- Fail silently off (default) — a failed backup aborts the deployment. The app keeps running the previous version, so you do not deploy on top of unbacked-up data.
- Fail silently on — QuickStack logs the failure and continues with the deployment.
A failing pre-deployment backup blocks deploys If deployments stop with "Deployment aborted because an automatic pre-deployment backup failed", fix the S3 target or volume backup, or enable Fail silently on deployment if you want to proceed anyway.
Monitoring
Navigate to Backups in the main menu to see:
- Last run time and status (success / failure)
- Backup size and storage location
- Manual run button
- A download action per backup. See Download & Restore.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Schedule not running | Verify cron expression; check server time is correct |
| Upload fails | Confirm S3 credentials; verify bucket exists with read/write/delete permissions |
| Deploy aborts with a pre-deployment backup error | Fix the failing S3 target/backup, or enable Fail silently on deployment |
| Backup is unexpectedly large | Check for leftover temp files inside the volume path |