> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.techulus.cloud/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Backups

> Automated volume backups to S3-compatible storage.

Techulus Cloud can automatically back up service volumes to S3-compatible storage. Backups are triggered on a schedule or manually from the web UI.

> **Backups are not high availability:** Backups provide point-in-time disaster recovery only. If a server hosting a stateful service is lost, any writes after the last successful backup may be lost, and recovery requires restoring data before the service can run elsewhere. Backups do not provide replicated storage or automatic failover.

## How It Works

The agent stops the running container, archives the volume directory as a `.tar.gz` file, uploads the archive to S3-compatible storage, then starts the container again if it was running.

Backups are volume snapshots. Techulus Cloud does not run database-native dump tools, and running production databases on local single-node volumes is not recommended.

## Configuration

Configure S3-compatible storage in the control plane environment:

| Variable                        | Description                                                |
| ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_PROVIDER`       | Storage provider (e.g., `s3`)                              |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_BUCKET`         | Bucket name                                                |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_REGION`         | AWS region                                                 |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_ENDPOINT`       | Custom endpoint for MinIO or other S3-compatible providers |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY`     | Access key                                                 |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_SECRET_KEY`     | Secret key                                                 |
| `BACKUP_STORAGE_RETENTION_DAYS` | Number of days to retain backups (default: `7`)            |

Works with AWS S3, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces, and any S3-compatible provider.