---
title: How to backup your databases
eleventyNavigation:
  key: 🗄️ Backup your databases
  parent: How-to guides
  order: 8
---
## Database dump hooks

If you want to backup a database, it's best practice with most database
systems to backup an exported database dump, rather than backing up your
database's internal file storage. That's because the internal storage can
change while you're reading from it. In contrast, a database dump creates a
consistent snapshot that is more suited for backups.

Fortunately, borgmatic includes built-in support for creating database dumps
prior to running backups. For example, here is everything you need to dump and
backup a couple of local PostgreSQL databases, a MySQL/MariaDB database, and a
MongoDB database:

```yaml
hooks:
    postgresql_databases:
        - name: users
        - name: orders
    mysql_databases:
        - name: posts
    mongodb_databases:
        - name: messages
```

As part of each backup, borgmatic streams a database dump for each configured
database directly to Borg, so it's included in the backup without consuming
additional disk space. (The exceptions are the PostgreSQL/MongoDB "directory"
dump formats, which can't stream and therefore do consume temporary disk
space. Additionally, prior to borgmatic 1.5.3, all database dumps consumed
temporary disk space.)

To support this, borgmatic creates temporary named pipes in `~/.borgmatic` by
default. To customize this path, set the `borgmatic_source_directory` option
in the `location` section of borgmatic's configuration.

Also note that using a database hook implicitly enables both the
`read_special` and `one_file_system` configuration settings (even if they're
disabled in your configuration) to support this dump and restore streaming.
See Limitations below for more on this.

Here's a more involved example that connects to remote databases:

```yaml
hooks:
    postgresql_databases:
        - name: users
          hostname: database1.example.org
        - name: orders
          hostname: database2.example.org
          port: 5433
          username: postgres
          password: trustsome1
          format: tar
          options: "--role=someone"
    mysql_databases:
        - name: posts
          hostname: database3.example.org
          port: 3307
          username: root
          password: trustsome1
          options: "--skip-comments"
    mongodb_databases:
        - name: messages
          hostname: database4.example.org
          port: 27018
          username: dbuser
          password: trustsome1
          authentication_database: mongousers
          options: "--ssl"
```

See your [borgmatic configuration
file](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/reference/configuration/) for
additional customization of the options passed to database commands (when
listing databases, restoring databases, etc.).


### All databases

If you want to dump all databases on a host, use `all` for the database name:

```yaml
hooks:
    postgresql_databases:
        - name: all
    mysql_databases:
        - name: all
    mongodb_databases:
        - name: all
```

Note that you may need to use a `username` of the `postgres` superuser for
this to work with PostgreSQL.

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version 1.7.6</span> With
PostgreSQL and MySQL, you can optionally dump "all" databases to separate
files instead of one combined dump file, allowing more convenient restores of
individual databases. Enable this by specifying your desired database dump
`format`:

```yaml
hooks:
    postgresql_databases:
        - name: all
          format: custom
    mysql_databases:
        - name: all
          format: sql
```

### No source directories

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version 1.7.1</span> If you
would like to backup databases only and not source directories, you can omit
`source_directories` entirely.

In older versions of borgmatic, instead specify an empty `source_directories`
value, as it is a mandatory option prior to version 1.7.1:

```yaml
location:
    source_directories: []
hooks:
    mysql_databases:
        - name: all
```



### External passwords

If you don't want to keep your database passwords in your borgmatic
configuration file, you can instead pass them in via [environment
variables](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/provide-your-passwords/)
or command-line [configuration
overrides](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/make-per-application-backups/#configuration-overrides).


### Configuration backups

An important note about this database configuration: You'll need the
configuration to be present in order for borgmatic to restore a database. So
to prepare for this situation, it's a good idea to include borgmatic's own
configuration files as part of your regular backups. That way, you can always
bring back any missing configuration files in order to restore a database.


## Supported databases

As of now, borgmatic supports PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, and MongoDB databases
directly. But see below about general-purpose preparation and cleanup hooks as
a work-around with other database systems. Also, please [file a
ticket](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/#issues) for additional database systems
that you'd like supported.


## Database restoration

To restore a database dump from an archive, use the `borgmatic restore`
action. But the first step is to figure out which archive to restore from. A
good way to do that is to use the `rlist` action:

```bash
borgmatic rlist
```

(No borgmatic `rlist` action? Try `list` instead or upgrade borgmatic!)

That should yield output looking something like:

```text
host-2023-01-01T04:05:06.070809      Tue, 2023-01-01 04:05:06 [...]
host-2023-01-02T04:06:07.080910      Wed, 2023-01-02 04:06:07 [...]
```

Assuming that you want to restore all database dumps from the archive with the
most up-to-date files and therefore the latest timestamp, run a command like:

```bash
borgmatic restore --archive host-2023-01-02T04:06:07.080910
```

(No borgmatic `restore` action? Upgrade borgmatic!)

With newer versions of borgmatic, you can simplify this to:

```bash
borgmatic restore --archive latest
```

The `--archive` value is the name of the archive to restore from. This
restores all databases dumps that borgmatic originally backed up to that
archive.

This is a destructive action! `borgmatic restore` replaces live databases by
restoring dumps from the selected archive. So be very careful when and where
you run it.


### Repository selection

If you have a single repository in your borgmatic configuration file(s), no
problem: the `restore` action figures out which repository to use.

But if you have multiple repositories configured, then you'll need to specify
the repository path containing the archive to restore. Here's an example:

```bash
borgmatic restore --repository repo.borg --archive host-2023-...
```

### Restore particular databases

If you've backed up multiple databases into an archive, and you'd only like to
restore one of them, use the `--database` flag to select one or more
databases. For instance:

```bash
borgmatic restore --archive host-2023-... --database users
```

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version 1.7.6</span> You can
also restore individual databases even if you dumped them as "all"—as long as
you dumped them into separate files via use of the "format" option. See above
for more information.


### Restore all databases

To restore all databases:

```bash
borgmatic restore --archive host-2023-... --database all
```

Or just omit the `--database` flag entirely:


```bash
borgmatic restore --archive host-2023-...
```

Prior to borgmatic version 1.7.6, this restores a combined "all" database
dump from the archive.

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version 1.7.6</span> Restoring
"all" databases restores each database found in the selected archive. That
includes any combined dump file named "all" and any other individual database
dumps found in the archive.


### Limitations

There are a few important limitations with borgmatic's current database
restoration feature that you should know about:

1. You must restore as the same Unix user that created the archive containing
the database dump. That's because the user's home directory path is encoded
into the path of the database dump within the archive.
2. As mentioned above, borgmatic can only restore a database that's defined in
borgmatic's own configuration file. So include your configuration file in
backups to avoid getting caught without a way to restore a database.
3. borgmatic does not currently support backing up or restoring multiple
databases that share the exact same name on different hosts.
4. Because database hooks implicitly enable the `read_special` configuration
setting to support dump and restore streaming, you'll need to ensure that any
special files are excluded from backups (named pipes, block devices,
character devices, and sockets) to prevent hanging. Try a command like
`find /your/source/path -type b -or -type c -or -type p -or -type s` to find
such files. Common directories to exclude are `/dev` and `/run`, but that may
not be exhaustive. <span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version
1.7.3</span> When database hooks are enabled, borgmatic automatically excludes
special files that may cause Borg to hang, so you no longer need to manually
exclude them. (This includes symlinks with special files as a destination.) You
can override/prevent this behavior by explicitly setting `read_special` to true.


### Manual restoration

If you prefer to restore a database without the help of borgmatic, first
[extract](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/extract-a-backup/) an
archive containing a database dump.

borgmatic extracts the dump file into the *`username`*`/.borgmatic/` directory
within the extraction destination path, where *`username`* is the user that
created the backup. For example, if you created the backup with the `root`
user and you're extracting to `/tmp`, then the dump will be in
`/tmp/root/.borgmatic`.

After extraction, you can manually restore the dump file using native database
commands like `pg_restore`, `mysql`, `mongorestore` or similar.


## Preparation and cleanup hooks

If this database integration is too limited for needs, borgmatic also supports
general-purpose [preparation and cleanup
hooks](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/).
These hooks allows you to trigger arbitrary commands or scripts before and
after backups. So if necessary, you can use these hooks to create database
dumps with any database system.


## Troubleshooting

### MySQL table lock errors

If you encounter table lock errors during a database dump with MySQL/MariaDB,
you may need to [use a
transaction](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysqldump.html#option_mysqldump_single-transaction).
You can add any additional flags to the `options:` in your database
configuration. Here's an example:

```yaml
hooks:
    mysql_databases:
        - name: posts
          options: "--single-transaction --quick"
```

### borgmatic hangs during backup

See Limitations above about `read_special`. You may need to exclude certain
paths with named pipes, block devices, character devices, or sockets on which
borgmatic is hanging.

Alternatively, if excluding special files is too onerous, you can create two
separate borgmatic configuration files—one for your source files and a
separate one for backing up databases. That way, the database `read_special`
option will not be active when backing up special files.

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in version 1.7.3</span> See
Limitations above about borgmatic's automatic exclusion of special files to
prevent Borg hangs.