Restore from Backup

You can restore a database from a previous backup either in-place or to a different cluster.

Note: Choose the resources carefully for your new database cluster. The operation may fail if there is insufficient disk space or RAM. We recommend at least 4 GB of RAM for the new database, which can be scaled down after the restore operation.

Listing all available backups

To restore from a backup, you need to provide its ID. You can request a list of all available backups:

Request

curl --include \
    --user "[email protected]:Mb2.r5oHf-0t" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    https://api.ionos.com/databases/postgresql/clusters/backups

Response

{
  "id": "backups",
  "type": "collection",
  "items": [
    {
      "type": "backup",
      "id": "dcd31531-3ac8-11eb-9feb-046c59cc737e",
      "properties": {
        "clusterId": "498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e",
        "version": "15",
        "earliestRecoveryTargetTime": "2021-12-08T14:02:59Z"
      },
      "metadata": {...}
    },
    {
      "type": "backup",
      "id": "2b0cd7f8-5924-11ec-b621-da289d52ded8",
      "properties": {
        "clusterId": "2c12ad79-5cba-b2fc-b621-da289d52ded8",
        "version": "16",
        "earliestRecoveryTargetTime": "2021-12-09T14:02:59Z"
      },
      "metadata": {...}
    }
  ],
  "offset": 0,
  "limit": 2,
  "_links": {}
}

Listing backups per cluster

You can also list backups belonging to a specific cluster. For this, you need a clusterId.

Our chosen clusterId is: 498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e

Request

curl --include \
    --user "[email protected]:Mb2.r5oHf-0t" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    https://api.ionos.com/databases/postgresql/clusters/498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e/backups

Response

{
  "type": "collection",
  "id": "498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e/backups",
  "items": [
    {
      "type": "backup",
      "id": "dcd31531-3ac8-11eb-9feb-046c59cc737e",
      "metadata": {...},
      "properties": {
        "clusterId": "498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e",
        "version": "15",
        "isActive": true,
        "earliestRecoveryTargetTime": "2020-12-08T20:13:49.000Z"
      }
    }
  ],
  "offset": 0,
  "limit": 1,
  "links": {}
}

Restoring from backup in-place

You can now trigger a restore of the chosen cluster. Your database will not be available during the restore operation.

The recoveryTargetTime is an ISO-8601 timestamp that specifies the point in time up to which data will be restored. It is non-inclusive, meaning the recovery will stop right before this timestamp.

You should choose a backup with the most recent earliestRecoveryTargetTime. However, this timestamp should be strictly less than the desirable recoveryTargetTime. For example suppose you have three backups with earliestRecoveryTargetTime from 1st, 2nd and 3rd of january 2022 at 0:00:00 espectively. If you want to restore to the recoveryTargetTime 2022-01-02T20:00:00Z, you should use chose the backup from 2nd of january.

Note: To restore a cluster in-place you can only use backups from that cluster. If that backup is from an older Postgres version (after a major version upgrade), only the data is applied. The database will continue running the updated version.

Request

curl --include \
    --request POST \
    --user "[email protected]:Mb2.r5oHf-0t" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data-binary '{
      "backupId": "dcd31531-3ac8-11eb-9feb-046c59cc737e",
      "recoveryTargetTime": "2020-12-10T12:37:50.000Z"
    }' \
    https://api.ionos.com/databases/postgresql/clusters/498ae72f-411f-11eb-9d07-046c59cc737e/restore

Response

The API will respond with a 202 Accepted status code if the request is successful.

Restoring to a different target

You can also create a new cluster as a copy from a backup by adding the fromBackup field in your POST request. You can use any backup from any cluster as long as the target cluster has the same or a more recent version of PostgreSQL.

The field takes the same arguments as shown above, backupId and recoveryTargetTime.

Note: A backup is a continuous process, so if you have any ongoing workload in your current cluster, do not expect the old data to appear instantly. If you wish to avoid a slight delay, you need to stop the workload prior to backing up.

If you want a new database to have all the data from the old one (clone database) use a backup with the most recent earliestRecoveryTargetTime and omit recoveryTargetTime from the POST request.

Note: You can use the POST and fromBackup functionality to move a database to another region since the new database cluster doesn't need to be in the same region as the original one.

Request

curl --include \
    --request POST \
    --user "[email protected]:Mb2.r5oHf-0t" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data-binary '{
      "metadata": {},
      "properties: {
        "postgresVersion": "16",
        "instances": 2,
        "cores": 4,
        "ram": 2048,
        "location": "DE/TXL",
        "storageSize": 20000,
        "storageType": "HDD",
        "displayName": "a good name for a database",
        "synchronizationMode": "ASYNCHRONOUS",
        "credentials": {
          "username": "dsertionos",
          "password": "knight-errant"
        },
        "connections": [
          {
            "datacenterId": "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx",
            "lanId": "x",
            "cidr": "x.x.x.x/24",
          }
        ],
        "fromBackup": {
          "backupId": "dcd31531-3ac8-11eb-9feb-046c59cc737e",
          "recoveryTargetTime": "2020-12-23T09:37:50.000Z"
        }
      }
    }' \
    https://api.ionos.com/databases/postgresql/clusters