Backup plans

Create, schedule, pause, and run Devpilot backup plans for databases, files, and server images — with flexible intervals, cron, or real-time schedules and full retention controls.

A backup plan is the central concept in Devpilot Backups. It tells Devpilot what to back up, where to store it, how often to run, and how long to keep the resulting artifacts. This page walks through everything you can configure and every action you can take against a plan.

Overview

When you create a plan you give it a name, a short optional description, and choose what kind of backup it is — database, file, or server image. You then point Devpilot at the source (a database connection or a set of file paths), pick a destination to write the artifacts to, and decide on a schedule and retention. Devpilot asks for a payment method up front so storage and execution can be billed to the right card.

Once a plan is running, its detail view shows the essentials at a glance: its current status, when it last ran, when it's due to run next, and how much storage it's currently using across its kept runs.

Plan types

Back up one or more databases on a server. When you create a database plan, you pick an engine (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, or Redis), point Devpilot at a host and port, and provide credentials with read access. You can optionally pick an SSL mode (disabled, require, verify-ca, or verify-full) and choose whether Devpilot should connect directly or through SSH. The form includes a Test Connection button and a Discover Databases helper, so you can confirm credentials and pick target databases without typing their names by hand.

Back up one or more directories on a server. You supply a list of paths to include (for example /var/www/html and /etc/nginx), optional exclude patterns (glob style), and a toggle for whether Docker volumes should be included. File plans run a chunked, deduplicated upload pipeline and produce a file snapshot per run — see Backup history for what the snapshot summary looks like.

Back up a whole server or disk by asking your cloud provider to take a snapshot. Image plans skip the destination step because the snapshot is stored in your cloud account. Devpilot records the snapshot reference, cost, and retention alongside the rest of your plan history.

Schedules

A plan's schedule decides when it runs. You pick one of four options.

Manual

Pick Manual if you only ever want to run the plan on demand. There's no recurring schedule to fill in, but you still set a retention window.

Interval

Runs every N units. Pick a number (at least 1) and a unit — minutes, hours, days, or weeks. You can also set a timezone so scheduled runs line up with your team's working hours.

Cron

Runs on a cron expression. Enter something like 0 3 * * * for 03:00 daily, and pick a timezone.

Real-time

Continuously streams changes rather than taking discrete snapshots. Real-time plans don't use a recurring schedule or a keep-count retention window — instead, you choose how often Devpilot should roll a durable snapshot of the stream (every 1, 6, 12, or 24 hours).

Real-time backup has its own dedicated page — see Real-time backup for supported engines, change-data-capture sources, and limitations.

Real-time is only available for database plans on MySQL and PostgreSQL, and for file plans (via filesystem watching). Other combinations fall back to interval or cron.

Retention

Every non-real-time plan needs to say how many copies to keep and for how long. You set two things: a minimum number of recent runs to keep (between 1 and 365), and a time window expressed in days, weeks, months, or years. Devpilot keeps at least the requested number of copies and anything inside the time window — whichever is larger wins.

There's also a Delete old runs toggle, which is on by default. Leave it on and Devpilot prunes runs that fall outside the window automatically. Turn it off and expired runs are flagged but left on the destination, so you can audit them before removing them yourself.

Compression and encryption

Two toggles sit on every plan:

Compression — on by default. SQL dumps are gzipped and file bundles are tar.gz'd before upload.
Encryption — off by default. When on, artifacts are encrypted at rest with workspace-level keys before being written to the destination.

Plan status

A plan is always in one of three states:

Active — the schedule is live. The plan will run on its next tick (interval or cron) or stream changes (real-time).
Paused — you paused the plan. Scheduled runs are skipped until you resume it.
Disabled — Devpilot disabled the plan, usually because billing failed, the destination is unreachable, or the workspace quota was exceeded.

Use Pause to flip from Active to Paused and Resume to flip back. Disabled plans need the underlying issue fixed before they can be re-activated.

Creating a plan

Open Backups

From the workspace sidebar, open Backups. You land on the Backup Plans tab.

Click Create Backup

Devpilot opens a multi-step wizard.

Pick the type and source

Choose Database, File, or Image, then fill in the source.

Database — engine, host, port, credentials, SSL mode, and the target database name(s). Use Test Connection and Discover Databases before continuing.
File — source server and one or more paths, plus optional exclude patterns.
Image — source server; Devpilot hands off to your cloud provider from there.

Choose a destination

Either pick an existing destination from the dropdown or define a new one inline. See Destinations for what each destination type needs. Image plans skip this step.

Set the schedule

Pick Manual, Interval, Cron, or Real-time, then fill in the schedule details. Add a timezone if you want runs to honour a specific locale.

Configure retention and toggles

For non-real-time plans, set how many runs to keep and the keep-for window, and flip Compression or Encryption if you need to.

Pick a payment method and create

Pick the card you want storage and execution costs to bill against, then click Create.

Managing a plan

Once a plan exists, the Backup Plans tab gives you four actions per row:

Run now — dispatches an immediate backup run. A history entry appears within seconds and progress streams live into the dashboard.
Pause / Resume — toggles the plan between Active and Paused.
Edit — change the schedule, retention, destination, toggles, or source config. Most changes take effect from the next run.
Delete — removes the plan, its execution history, its restore history, its stored artifacts, and the real-time stream if any. If no other plan references the destination, that destination is removed too.

Deleting a plan is permanent. Devpilot will delete the plan configuration, every run recorded for it, every restore launched from it, and the stored artifacts at the destination. Back up anything you need first.

Limits and edge cases

You can keep up to 365 runs per plan. For longer horizons, archive artifacts to cold storage manually.
Image plans don't accept a destination — the snapshot lives at your cloud provider.
Real-time plans ignore keep-count and keep-for retention — their durability comes from the rolling snapshot interval instead.
If the payment method is missing or invalid, the plan fails to create with a billing error.
A plan whose destination is deleted from under it will flip to Disabled on its next run.