Restoring database

This page explains how to restore the database if stored data is corrupted or lost.

Ensure necessary files exist

Database backup file

Once a day, at 2 a.m. UTC, a database backup is made.
It could be found in backend/db-backup/ on local storage, or in db-backup/ on backend-cron container.

All backups are named according to the following convention: backup_YYYY_MM_DD_HH_mm_SS.sql.
Where:

• YYYY represents the 4-digit year (e.g., 2024).
• MM represents the 2-digit month (e.g., 09 for September).
• DD represents the 2-digit day of the month (e.g., 13 for the 13th day).
• HH represents the 2-digit hour in 24-hour format (e.g., 15 for 3 PM).
• mm represents the 2-digit minute (e.g., 45 for 45 minutes past the hour).
• SS represents the 2-digit second (e.g., 30 for 30 seconds past the minute).

Note: The time used in the filename follows the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard.

Database structure file

A file containing the database structure must exist on local storage at the following path: backend/db-init/database-structure.sql.

Restore data

There are two methods to restore the database. The first one is easier and initializes a new database with the saved data. The second one is more advanced and uses a bash script to import saved data in the database.
In both cases, you first need to shut down the containers.

Shut down containers

Shut down all containers using the following command at the root of the project:

docker compose down -v

Initialize a new database

From local storage, move the most recent database backup to backend/db-init/database-structure.sql.
Then run the containers using the following command:

docker compose up

Import saved data

Run the containers using the following command:

docker compose up

Enter the backend-cron container shell using the command:

docker exec -it backend-cron /bin/bash

Call restore-db.sh script on command line:

./usr/local/bin/restore-db.sh

Ensure database has correctly been restored

After restoring the database, you might want to check that data has correctly been restored.

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 to open phpMyAdmin.
Once logged in, select backend-database from the left sidebar to view the tables and verify that the data has been restored.