Database backups

1. What? — Definition and context

Every night at 3 AM, a script backs up the four PostgreSQL databases of the infrastructure, the Odoo filestore, and the N8N encryption key to Google Drive. If anything fails, an alert fires immediately through the Notification Hub.

Rclone

Rclone is a CLI tool that syncs files with cloud services (Google Drive, S3, etc.). It handles chunked uploads for large files and supports automatic rotation of older backups.

What is backed up

Data	Source	Typical size
N8N database	n8n-stack PostgreSQL	~500 MB
Odoo database (guig_db)	odoo-stack PostgreSQL	~200 MB
TimeTrackr database	timetrackr-stack PostgreSQL	~10 MB
Odoo filestore	/var/lib/odoo/filestore/	~1 GB
N8N key	N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY	A few bytes

---

2. Why? — Stakes and motivations

Problems solved

Problem	Without auto backup	With auto backup
Data loss	DB corruption = everything gone	Restore from GDrive
Forgotten backups	”When was the last one?”	Daily 3 AM cron
No retention	Local disk fills up	Local rotation 7 d, GDrive 30 d
Silent failure	Backup fails, nobody knows	Instant Telegram alert

---

3. How? — Technical implementation

Architecture

The backup-databases.sh script

The script is triggered by crontab at 3 AM (0 3 * * *). It runs in order:

1. PostgreSQL dump — pg_dump of every database via docker exec
2. Compression — gzip of the dumps
3. Filestore copy — tar archive of the Odoo filestore
4. N8N key export — extracts N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY from environment variables
5. GDrive upload — rclone copy to the remote folder
6. Local rotation — deletes files older than 7 days
7. GDrive rotation — deletes files older than 30 days

If a step fails, the script keeps going and sends an error notification to the Notification Hub at the end.

Retention policy

Storage	Retention	Rotation
Local (/backups/)	7 days	Daily script
Google Drive	30 days	rclone delete --min-age 30d

Verification

# View the latest local backups
ls -lh /backups/

# View the logs
tail -20 /var/log/backup-databases.log

# Check the cron entry
crontab -l | grep backup

N8N encryption key

The N8N_ENCRYPTION_KEY is required to decrypt the credentials stored in the N8N database. Without it, imported workflows cannot reach external services. It is backed up in a separate file on GDrive.

---

4. What if? — Perspectives and limits

Current limits

Limit	Impact	Mitigation
No restore test	Issues surface at the worst possible moment	Monthly test planned
GDrive single point	If GDrive is down, no remote backup	Add a second provider (S3)
No incremental backup	Full dump every night	Acceptable at current volumes

Evolution scenarios

If data volume grows:

• Switch to incremental backups (PostgreSQL WAL archiving)
• Compress with zstd instead of gzip (faster, better ratio)

If fast restoration is required:

• Automated restore script
• Weekly automatic restore test in an ephemeral container

---

Related pages

Infrastructure

• VPS Architecture — Stacks overview
• N8N in queue mode — N8N database backed up
• Odoo 18 on Docker — Odoo database backed up

Workflows

• Notification Hub — Failure alerts
• N8N export to GitHub — Complementary workflow backup