Backup & Restore¶

Frappe Manager does not manage your Frappe site data backups directly — that is Frappe's job. FM's role is to make it easy to trigger backups and to keep your bench configuration safe during migrations.

Backing up your site data¶

From the command line¶

The quickest way to take a full backup including all uploaded files:

fm shell mybench -c "bench backup --with-files"

Without --with-files you get SQL only (faster, smaller):

fm shell mybench -c "bench backup"

From the Frappe web UI¶

Go to Setup → Download Backup from inside your Frappe site. This triggers the same backup and gives you a download link.

Where backups are stored¶

Bench backups land inside the container at /workspace/frappe-bench/sites/<sitename>/private/backups/. On the host that maps to:

~/frappe/<benchname>/workspace/frappe-bench/sites/<sitename>/private/backups/

Each backup is a set of three files:

File	Contents
`<timestamp>-database.sql.gz`	Compressed SQL dump of the entire database
`<timestamp>-files.tar`	Public file attachments
`<timestamp>-private-files.tar`	Private file attachments

Automating backups¶

The built-in Frappe scheduler runs bench backup automatically on a schedule you control from Setup → System Settings → Backup Settings inside your Frappe site. By default Frappe keeps the last three backups.

For off-site backups, copy the files out of the bench path or use Frappe's S3 push settings.

Restoring a backup¶

To restore a backup, open a shell into the bench and use the bench restore command:

fm shell mybench

Then inside the shell:

bench --site mybench.localhost restore \
  /workspace/frappe-bench/sites/mybench.localhost/private/backups/<timestamp>-database.sql.gz \
  --with-public-files  /workspace/frappe-bench/sites/mybench.localhost/private/backups/<timestamp>-files.tar \
  --with-private-files /workspace/frappe-bench/sites/mybench.localhost/private/backups/<timestamp>-private-files.tar

Tip

You can copy backup files from outside the container into ~/frappe/<benchname>/workspace/frappe-bench/sites/<sitename>/private/backups/ on the host. They appear at the same path inside the container.

FM migration backups (automatic)¶

When you run fm migrate, FM automatically backs up your bench's configuration files before applying any changes. This is separate from site data backups.

Migration backups are stored at:

~/frappe/<benchname>/backups/migrations/<timestamp>/

They include:

bench_config.toml — bench configuration
docker-compose.yml — container definitions
common_site_config.json — Frappe site config
<sitename>/site_config.json — per-site config

If a migration fails partway through, FM attempts to restore these files automatically. You can also restore them manually by copying them back to the bench directory.

Skipping backup during migration¶

If a backup is failing (for example because the database is in a bad state) you can skip it:

# Skip backup for a specific bench only
fm migrate --skip-backup-for mybench

# Skip backup for all benches (dangerous)
fm migrate --all-benches --skip-all-backup

Danger

Skipping migration backups means you cannot roll back automatically if something goes wrong. Only do this as a last resort.

Resetting a bench completely¶

If you want to wipe a bench's database and start fresh (keeping the app code), use fm reset:

fm reset mybench

This drops the database and reinstalls all apps. Back up first — this is irreversible.