# Backups, export and import

Zulip has high quality export and import tools that can be used to
move data from one Zulip server to another, do backups, compliance
work, or migrate from your own servers to the hosted Zulip Cloud
service (or back):

- The [Backup](#backups) tool is designed for exact restoration of a
  Zulip server's state, for disaster recovery, testing with production
  data, and hardware migrations.

  We highly recommend this tool in situations where it is applicable,
  because it is fast, robust, and minimizes disruption for your
  users. This tool has a few limitations:

  - Backups must be restored on a server running the same Zulip
    version (most precisely, one where `manage.py showmigrations` has
    identical output).
  - Backups must be restored on a server running the same PostgreSQL
    version. To install Zulip with the same version of PostgreSQL that
    the backup was taken on, pass the desired version with [the
    `--postgresql-version` argument][installer-options] when
    installing. Note that PostgreSQL is easy to [upgrade
    independently][postgres-upgrade] from the rest of your Zulip
    installation.
  - Backups aren't useful for migrating organizations between
    self-hosting and Zulip Cloud (which may require renumbering all
    the users/messages/etc.).

  We also document [backup details](#backup-details) for users
  managing backups manually.

- The [logical data export](#data-export) tool is designed for
  migrating data between Zulip Cloud and other Zulip servers, as well
  as various auditing purposes.

  We recommend this tool in cases where the backup tool isn't
  applicable, including situations where an easily machine-parsable
  export format is desired. This tool has a few limitations and
  caveats:

  - Like the backup tool, logical data exports must be imported on a
    Zulip server running the same Zulip version. However, logical data
    exports can be imported on Zulip servers running a different
    PostgreSQL version or hosting a different set of Zulip
    organizations.
  - Transferring an organization via the data export tool results in
    significant user-facing disruption, such as logging all users out of
    their accounts and requiring them to reset their passwords.

  The logical export tool produces a `.tar.gz` archive with most of
  the Zulip database data encoded in JSON files–a format shared by our
  [data import](#import-into-a-new-zulip-server) tools for third-party
  services like [Slack](https://zulip.com/help/import-from-slack).

- [Compliance exports](#compliance-exports) allow a server
  administrator to export messages matching a search query.

- Zulip also has an [HTML archive
  tool](https://github.com/zulip/zulip-archive), which is primarily
  intended for public archives, but can also be useful to
  inexpensively preserve public channel conversations when
  decommissioning a Zulip organization.

- It's possible to set up [PostgreSQL streaming
  replication](postgresql.md#postgresql-warm-standby)
  and the [S3 file upload
  backend](upload-backends.md#s3-backend-configuration)
  as part of a high availability environment.

[installer-options]: deployment.md#advanced-installer-options
[postgres-upgrade]: upgrade.md#upgrading-postgresql

## Backups

The Zulip server has a built-in backup tool:

```bash
# As the zulip user
/home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py backup
# Or as root
su zulip -c '/home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py backup'
```

The backup tool provides the following options:

- `--output=/tmp/backup.tar.gz`: Filename to write the backup tarball
  to (default: write to a file in `/tmp`). On success, the
  console output will show the path to the output tarball.
- `--skip-db`: Skip backup of the database. Useful if you're using a
  remote PostgreSQL host with its own backup system and just need to
  back up non-database state.
- `--skip-uploads`: If `LOCAL_UPLOADS_DIR` is set, user-uploaded files
  in that directory will be ignored.

This will generate a `.tar.gz` archive containing all the data stored
on your Zulip server that would be needed to restore your Zulip
server's state on another machine perfectly.

### Restoring backups

1. Install the same base OS as the backup was taken on. If you want to [upgrade
   the OS][upgrade-os], you should do this after restoring the backup.

1. [Install a new Zulip server through Step 3][install-server], with the same
   version of PostgreSQL that the backup was taken on, by passing the desired
   version with [the `--postgresql-version` argument][installer-options]. If
   you want to [upgrade the version of PostgreSQL][upgrade-pg], you should do this after
   restoring the backup.

1. As root, import the backup:

   ```bash
   /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/setup/restore-backup /path/to/backup
   ```

When that finishes, your Zulip server should be fully operational again.

[upgrade-os]: upgrade.md#upgrading-the-operating-system
[upgrade-pg]: upgrade.md#upgrading-postgresql

#### Changing the hostname

It's common, when testing backup restoration, to restore backups with a
different user-facing hostname than the original server to avoid
disrupting service (e.g. `zuliptest.example.com` rather than
`zulip.example.com`).

If you do so, just like any other time you change the hostname, you'll
need to [update `EXTERNAL_HOST`](settings.md) and then
restart the Zulip server (after backup restoration completes).

Until you do, your Zulip server will think its user-facing hostname is
still `zulip.example.com` and will return HTTP `400 BAD REQUEST`
errors when trying to access it via `zuliptest.example.com`.

#### Changing database settings

If you wish to restore onto a very differently configured host (e.g. with
`REMOTE_POSTGRES_HOST` set to a different value), you can edit
`/etc/zulip/settings.py` to configure the host to suit the new host's needs,
then restore with `--keep-settings`:

```bash
/home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/setup/restore-backup --keep-settings /path/to/backup
```

You can also pass `--keep-zulipconf` if you wish to preserve the local
`/etc/zulip/zulip.conf`.

#### Inspecting a backup tarball

If you're not sure what versions were in use when a given backup was
created, you can get that information via the files in the backup
tarball: `postgres-version`, `os-version`, and `zulip-version`. The
following command may be useful for viewing these files without
extracting the entire archive.

```bash
tar -Oaxf /path/to/archive/zulip-backup-rest.tar.gz zulip-backup/zulip-version
```

[install-server]: install.md

### What is included

Backups contain everything you need to fully restore your Zulip
server, including the database, settings, secrets from
`/etc/zulip`, and user-uploaded files stored on the Zulip server.

The following data is not included in these backup archives,
and you may want to back up separately:

- The server access/error logs from `/var/log/zulip`. The Zulip
  server only appends to logs, and they can be very large compared to
  the rest of the data for a Zulip server.

- Files uploaded with the Zulip
  [S3 file upload backend](upload-backends.md). We
  don't include these for two reasons. First, the uploaded file data
  in S3 can easily be many times larger than the rest of the backup,
  and downloading it all to a server doing a backup could easily
  exceed its disk capacity. Additionally, S3 is a reliable persistent
  storage system with its own high-quality tools for doing backups.

- SSL certificates. These are not included because they are
  particularly security-sensitive and are either trivially replaced
  (if generated via Certbot) or provided by the system administrator.

For completeness, Zulip's backups do not include certain highly
transient state that Zulip doesn't store in a database. For example,
typing status data, API rate-limiting counters, and RabbitMQ queues
that are essentially always empty in a healthy server (like outgoing
emails to send). You can check whether these queues are empty using
`rabbitmqctl list_queues`.

#### Backup details

This section is primarily for users managing backups themselves
(E.g. if they're using a remote PostgreSQL database with an existing
backup strategy), and also serves as documentation for what is
included in the backups generated by Zulip's standard tools. The
data includes:

- The PostgreSQL database. You can back this up with any standard
  database export or backup tool; see
  [below](#database-only-backup-tools) for Zulip's built-in support
  for continuous point-in-time backups.

- Any user-uploaded files. If you're using S3 as storage for file
  uploads, this is backed up in S3. But if you have instead set
  `LOCAL_UPLOADS_DIR`, any files uploaded by users (including avatars)
  will be stored in that directory and you'll want to back it up.

- Your Zulip configuration including secrets from `/etc/zulip/`.
  E.g. if you lose the value of `secret_key`, all users will need to
  log in again when you set up a replacement server since you won't be
  able to verify their cookies. If you lose `avatar_salt`, any
  user-uploaded avatars will need to be re-uploaded (since avatar
  filenames are computed using a hash of `avatar_salt` and user's
  email), etc.

### Restore from manual backups

To restore from a manual backup, the process is basically the reverse of the above:

- Install new server as normal by downloading a Zulip release tarball
  and then using `scripts/setup/install`. You should pass
  `--no-init-db` because we don't need to create a new database.

- Unpack to `/etc/zulip` the `settings.py` and `zulip-secrets.conf` files
  from your backups.

- Restore your database from the backup.

- Reconfigure rabbitmq to use the password from `secrets.conf`
  by running, as root, `scripts/setup/configure-rabbitmq`.

- If you're using local file uploads, restore those files to the path
  specified by `settings.LOCAL_UPLOADS_DIR` and (if appropriate) any
  logs.

- Start the server using `scripts/restart-server`.

This restoration process can also be used to migrate a Zulip
installation from one server to another.

We recommend running a disaster recovery test after setting up your backups to
confirm that your backups are working.

## Data export

Zulip's powerful data export tool is designed to handle migration of a
Zulip organization between different Zulip installations; as a result,
these exports contain all non-transient data for a Zulip organization,
with the exception of secrets, like passwords and API keys.

We recommend instead using the [backup tool](#backups) in all
scenarios where it is applicable, because this data export process has
a few downsides in comparison:

- All users will have their passwords randomized and be logged out of
  their accounts, both on web and mobile clients.
- All bots and integrations will need to be updated with new API keys.
- Users, channels, and messages are usually renumbered, which will
  break most links from external programs referencing these objects.

### Consider upgrading

We recommend [upgrading your Zulip server](../production/upgrade.md)
to the latest release [maintenance
release](../overview/release-lifecycle.md), or at least the latest
maintenance release for your major Zulip version.

**For Zulip Cloud imports**: If you are exporting data from a
self-hosted version of Zulip for purposes of importing into Zulip
Cloud, you should first [upgrade your server to the
`zulip-cloud-current` branch][upgrade-zulip-from-git]:

```bash
/home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/upgrade-zulip-from-git zulip-cloud-current
```

It is not sufficient to be on the latest stable release, because Zulip
Cloud runs pre-release versions of Zulip that are often several months
of development ahead of the latest release.

### Preventing changes during the export

For best results, you'll want to shut down access to the organization
before exporting; so that nobody can send new messages (etc.) while
you're exporting data. There are two ways to do this:

1. `./scripts/stop-server`, which stops the whole server. This is
   preferred if you're not hosting multiple organizations, because it has
   no side effects other than disabling the Zulip server for the
   duration.
1. Pass `--deactivate` to `./manage export`, which first deactivates
   the target organization, logging out all active login sessions and
   preventing all accounts from logging in or accessing the API. This is
   preferred for environments like Zulip Cloud where you might want to
   export a single organization without disrupting any other users, and
   the intent is to move hosting of the organization (and forcing users
   to re-log in would be required as part of the hosting migration
   anyway).

We include both options in the instructions below, commented out so
that neither runs (using the `# ` at the start of the lines). If
you'd like to use one of these options, remove the `# ` at the start
of the lines for the appropriate option.

### Export your Zulip data

Log in to a shell on your Zulip server as the `zulip` user. Run the
following commands:

```bash
cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
# ./scripts/stop-server
# export DEACTIVATE_FLAG="--deactivate"   # Deactivates the organization
./manage.py export -r '' $DEACTIVATE_FLAG # Exports the data
```

(The `-r` option lets you specify the organization to export; `''` is
the default organization hosted at the Zulip server's root domain.)

This will generate a compressed archive with a name like
`/tmp/zulip-export-zcmpxfm6.tar.gz`. The archive contains several JSON
files (containing the Zulip organization's data) as well as an archive
of all the organization's uploaded files.

## Import into a new Zulip server

1. [Install a new Zulip server](install.md),
   **skipping Step 3** (you'll create your Zulip organization via the data
   import tool instead).

   - Ensure that the Zulip server you're importing into is running the same
     version of Zulip as the server you're exporting from.

   - For exports created from Zulip Cloud (zulip.com), you need to [upgrade to
     `zulip-cloud-current`][upgrade-zulip-from-git], which represents the
     current version that Zulip Cloud is running; this is generally `main`
     delayed by a week or two. To upgrade to that:

     ```bash
     /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/upgrade-zulip-from-git zulip-cloud-current
     ```

     It is not sufficient to be on the latest stable release, as
     zulip.com runs pre-release versions of Zulip that are often
     several months of development ahead of the latest release.

   - Note that if your server has limited free RAM, you'll want to
     shut down the Zulip server with `./scripts/stop-server` while
     you run the import, since our minimal system requirements do not
     budget extra RAM for running the data import tool.

2. If your new Zulip server is meant to fully replace a previous Zulip
   server, copying `/etc/zulip/settings.py` and
   `/etc/zulip/zulip.conf` is safe and recommended, to avoid
   unnecessarily repeating configuration work.

   Copying `/etc/zulip/zulip-secrets.conf` is also safe and
   recommended, with the following important exceptions and notes:

   - Copying `avatar_salt` is not recommended. Zulip will
     automatically rewrite avatars at URLs appropriate for the new
     user IDs, and using the same avatar salt (and same server URL)
     post import could result in issues with browsers caching and
     displaying avatar images improperly for users whose ID was
     renumbered.
   - Copying `zulip_org_id` and `zulip_org_key` is recommended to
     avoid disconnecting your Zulip server from its registration with
     the [Mobile Push Notifications Service][mobile-push].
   - If you copy the `rabbitmq_password` secret from
     `zulip-secrets.conf`, you'll need to run
     `scripts/setup/configure-rabbitmq` as root to update your local
     RabbitMQ installation to use the password in your Zulip secrets
     file.
   - Copying `camo_key` is required to avoid breaking links from Zulip
     messages to externally hosted images.
   - If your Zulip server is on an old Zulip Server release that
     predates Zulip 5.0, and you use the [Mobile Push Notifications
     Service][mobile-push], you should upgrade before you do the
     export/import process if at all possible, and [ask for support][contact-support] if
     it is not.

3. Log in to a shell on your Zulip server as the `zulip` user. Run the
   following commands, replacing the filename with the path to your data
   export tarball:

   ```bash
   cd ~
   tar -xf /path/to/export/file/zulip-export-zcmpxfm6.tar.gz
   cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
   ./manage.py import '' ~/zulip-export-zcmpxfm6
   ./scripts/start-server
   ```

This could take several minutes to run depending on how much data you're
importing.

[contact-support]: https://zulip.com/help/contact-support
[upgrade-zulip-from-git]: upgrade.md#upgrading-from-a-git-repository

#### Import options

The commands above create an imported organization on the root domain
(`EXTERNAL_HOST`) of the Zulip installation. You can also import into a
custom subdomain, e.g. if you already have an existing organization on the
root domain. Replace the last two lines above with the following, after replacing
`<subdomain>` with the desired subdomain.

```bash
./manage.py import <subdomain> ~/zulip-export-zcmpxfm6
./scripts/start-server
```

### Logging in

Once the import completes, all your users will have accounts in your
new Zulip organization, but those accounts won't have passwords yet
(since for security reasons, passwords are not exported).
Your users will need to either authenticate using something like
Google auth or start by resetting their passwords.

You can use the `./manage.py send_password_reset_email` command to
send password reset emails to your users. We
recommend starting with sending one to yourself for testing:

```bash
./manage.py send_password_reset_email -u username@example.com
```

and then once you're ready, you can email them to everyone using e.g.

```bash
./manage.py send_password_reset_email -r '' --all-users
```

(replace `''` with your subdomain if you're using one).

### Deleting and re-importing

If you did a test import of a Zulip organization, you may want to
delete the test import data from your Zulip server before doing a
final import. You can **permanently delete** all data from a Zulip
organization by running (replacing `''` with the subdomain if [you are
hosting the organization on a subdomain](multiple-organizations.md)):

```bash
./manage.py delete_realm -r ''
```

Assuming you're using the
[local file uploads backend](upload-backends.md), you
can additionally delete all file uploads, avatars, and custom emoji on
a Zulip server (across **all organizations**) with the following
command:

```bash
rm -rf /home/zulip/uploads/*/*
```

If you're hosting multiple organizations and would like to remove
uploads from a single organization, you'll need to access `realm.id`
in the management shell before deleting the organization from the
database (this will be `2` for the first organization created on a
Zulip server, shown in the example below), e.g.:

```bash
rm -rf /home/zulip/uploads/*/2/
```

Once that's done, you can simply re-run the import process.

## Compliance exports

In some circumstances, corporate or legal compliance may require
performing selective data exports. This can be done with the
`export_search` command-line tool, which lets you specify the
following parameters when exporting messages:

- Search keywords in the message text.
- Message sender or recipient.
- Time range for when messages were sent.

For example, to search for messages containing the word "wonderland"
between November 1st and 6th, from `alice@example.com`:

```console
$ /home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py export_search --output compliance-export.json
    -r zulip \
    --after '2022-11-01 00:00:00' --before '2022-11-06 14:00:00' \
    --sender alice@example.com \
    wonderland
```

The results are written to a JSON or CSV file. The contents of previous versions
of edited messages are not searched, nor are deleted messages. Attachments
associated with the resulting messages can optionally also be exported.

See `/home/zulip/deployments/current/manage.py export_search --help`
for more details on supported options.

## Database-only backup tools

The [Zulip-specific backup tool documented above](#backups) is perfect for an
all-in-one backup solution, and can be used for nightly backups. For
administrators wanting continuous point-in-time backups, Zulip has built-in
support for taking daily backup snapshots along with [streaming write-ahead log
(WAL)][wal] backups using [wal-g](https://github.com/wal-g/wal-g). By default,
these backups are stored for 30 days.

Note these database backups, by themselves, do not constitute a full
backup of the Zulip system! [See above](#backup-details) for other
pieces which are necessary to back up a Zulip system.

Daily full-database backups will be taken at 0200 UTC, and every [WAL][wal]
archive file will be backed up as it is saved by PostgreSQL; these are written
every 16KiB of the WAL. This means that if there are periods of slow activity,
it may be minutes before the backup is saved into S3 -- see
[`archive_timeout`][archive-timeout] for how to set an upper bound on this.

If you need always-current backup availability, Zulip also has
[built-in database replication support](postgresql.md#postgresql-warm-standby).

You can (and should) monitor that backups are running regularly, for instance
via the Prometheus exporter found in
`puppet/zulip/files/postgresql/wal-g-exporter`

### Streaming backups to S3

This provides a durable and reliable off-host database backup, and we suggest
this configuration for resilience to disk failures. Because backups are written
to S3 as the WAL logs are written, this means that an active Zulip server will
be regularly sending PutObject requests to S3, possibly thousands of times per
day.

1. Edit `/etc/zulip/zulip-secrets.conf` on the PostgreSQL server to add:

   ```ini
   s3_region = # region to write to S3; defaults to EC2 host's region
   s3_backups_key = # aws public key; optional, if access not through role
   s3_backups_secret_key =  # aws secret key; optional, if access not through role
   s3_backups_bucket = # name of S3 backup bucket
   ```

1. Run:

   ```shell
   /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/zulip-puppet-apply
   ```

You may also want to adjust the
[concurrency](system-configuration.md#backups_disk_concurrency), [S3 storage
class](system-configuration.md#backups_storage_class), or [incremental
backups][incremental] configuration.

### Streaming backups to local disk

As an alternative to storing backups to S3, you can also store backups to a
local disk. This option is not recommended for disaster recovery purposes,
since unless the directory is on a different disk from the database itself,
_backups will likely also be lost if the database is lost._ This setting can be
useful if the path is on a NAS mountpoint, or if some other process copies this
data off the disk; or if backups are purely for point-in-time historical
analysis of recent application-level data changes.

1. Edit `/etc/zulip/zulip.conf` on the PostgreSQL server, and add to the existing
   `[postgresql]` section:

   ```ini
    # Adjust this path to your desired storage location; this should be on a
    # different disk than /var/lib/postgresql/ which stores the database.
    backups_directory = /srv/zulip-db-backups
   ```

1. Run:

   ```shell
   /home/zulip/deployments/current/scripts/zulip-puppet-apply
   ```

You may also want to adjust the [incremental backups][incremental]
configuration.

[wal]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/wal-intro.html
[archive-timeout]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-ARCHIVE-TIMEOUT
[mobile-push]: ../production/mobile-push-notifications.md
[incremental]: system-configuration.md#backups_incremental