Can someone verify this backup strategy?

general discussion
1

There’s a great deal of documentation, but i’m a bit lost on how to achieve this, so i asked ChatGPT the following question:
“How do i configure urbackup to keep 2 yearly backups, 12 monthly backups, 4 weekly backups, and 7 daily backups?”

And it replied this:
Here’s how you can get exactly 7 daily, 4 weekly, 12 monthly and 2 yearly restore points using UrBackup’s Archiving feature:

  1. Open the UrBackup Web UI and go to Settings → Archiving.
  2. Click Add to create your first rule:
  • Archive every: 1 Days
  • Keep for: 7 Days
  • Click OK.
  1. Click Add again for your weekly retention:
  • Archive every: 1 Weeks
  • Keep for: 4 Weeks
  • OK.
  1. Repeat for monthly:
  • Archive every: 1 Months
  • Keep for: 12 Months
  • OK.
  1. And finally for yearly:
  • Archive every: 1 Years
  • Keep for: 2 Years
  • OK.

Then i asked:
“how do i configure client backups for this”

And it replied with:

1. Ensure daily backups

  1. In the UrBackup Web UI go to Settings → File Backups (or Image Backups if you’re backing up images).
  2. Under Backup schedule, add a schedule line like this (or edit the default):
  • Days between backups: 1
  • Type: Incremental
  • Start time: e.g. 02:00
  1. This guarantees that each client will send one incremental backup every 24 hours, so you’ll have something for your “archive every 1 day; keep 7 days” rule to pick from.

2. Schedule one full backup per week

  1. Still under Settings → File Backups → Backup schedule, click Add.
  2. Enter:
  • Days between backups: leave empty
  • Days of week: check e.g. Sunday
  • Type: Full
  • Start time: e.g. 03:00
  1. Save.

This makes each client do exactly one full backup every week.

3. Schedule one full backup per month

  1. Again under Backup schedule, click Add.
  2. Enter:
  • Days of month: 1
  • Type: Full
  • Start time: 04:00
  1. Save.

You’ll now get one full backup on the 1st of every month.

4. Schedule one full backup per year

  1. Under the same Backup schedule table, click Add.
  2. Enter:
  • Days of month: 1
  • Months: 1
  • Type: Full
  • Start time: 05:00
  1. Save.

That gives you a full backup once a year (January 1st).

To me this seems to be correct, are there others who do it like this? I am hosting my own fediverse servers for friends and family, and i want to have a good backup in place :slight_smile:

2

What version of urbackup are you running? Is it on linux or windows? Are you using the browser GUI?