Databasus released full backups portability: backups recoverable without Databasus itself

Source: Dev.to

Databasus Guarantees Backup Portability

Any backup file Databasus creates can be decrypted, decompressed, and restored using only standard open‑source tools—no Databasus installation required.
The backup files you store on S3, Google Drive, Azure Blob Storage, a local server, or any other destination remain fully accessible and fully yours, regardless of what happens to your Databasus instance.

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What “backup portability” actually means

Vendor lock‑in is usually associated with proprietary SaaS platforms. Even open‑source backup tools can create hidden dependencies: if the tool stops running on your server, changes its format, or simply isn’t available when you need it, your backup files might become unreadable without a working installation.

Databasus deliberately avoids this. Every backup follows a documented, standard pipeline using well‑known tools at each step, so your ability to restore data never depends on Databasus being available.

This is especially important in emergencies. When your server is down or your Databasus instance is corrupted, recovery must be as dependency‑free as possible: you go to your storage, download the backup file, and restore it with tools you already have.

The portability guarantee covers

• Decrypting backup files without Databasus or its internal database
• Decompressing and restoring the raw dump to your database
• Working with any storage destination where the backup file lives

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How backup files are structured

Understanding recovery starts with knowing what’s actually inside a backup file.

Database‑specific pipelines

• PostgreSQL – pg_dump custom format
• MySQL / MariaDB – mysqldump
• MongoDB – mongodump

The decryption and decompression steps are identical across all database types; only the final restore command differs.

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What you need to recover from storage

To restore a backup manually you only need:

1. The backup file downloaded from your storage (S3, Google Drive, Azure Blob, Dropbox, SFTP, or local).
2. The secret.key file from your Databasus data directory (/opt/databasus/databasus-data/secret.key).
3. Standard CLI tools:
   • openssl for decryption
   • zstd for decompression
   • The appropriate database restore utility (pg_restore, mysql, or mongorestore)

The secret.key file is the only piece of data unique to your Databasus instance. It is used to derive the encryption key for every backup. Without it, decryption is impossible; with it, you are completely independent of Databasus.

Tip: Store secret.key separately from your Databasus installation. One copy in a safe place is all you need to keep the recovery path open.

Detailed step‑by‑step instructions are available in the manual recovery guide.

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How the recovery process works

The steps are straightforward regardless of which storage you use.

Detailed commands (example for PostgreSQL)

# 1. Download the backup file (example using aws cli)
aws s3 cp s3://my-bucket/backup-2024-02-15.dat .

# 2. Decrypt
openssl enc -d -aes-256-gcm -in backup-2024-02-15.dat \
        -out backup-2024-02-15.enc \
        -pass file:/opt/databasus/databasus-data/secret.key \
        -nosalt -p

# 3. Decompress
zstd -d backup-2024-02-15.enc -o backup-2024-02-15.dump

# 4. Restore
pg_restore -d my_database backup-2024-02-15.dump

(Replace the commands with mysqldump/mysql or mongodump/mongorestore equivalents for MySQL/MariaDB or MongoDB.)

Every step uses tools that exist independently of Databasus. None of them require Databasus to be installed or running.

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Why this design decision matters

Most backup tools optimize for metrics: stars, downloads, benchmark numbers. Databasus optimizes for something different—your ability to get your data back under any circumstances, with or without the tool itself.

Using standard formats at every layer means the recovery path is:

• Documented and well‑tested
• Tool‑agnostic (you can verify backups manually)
• Extensible (you can write your own restore scripts)
• Future‑proof (you can recover from any storage even if you never touch Databasus again)

Databasus treats PostgreSQL backup seriously enough to document an “escape hatch.” The goal is user independence, not dependency. A backup tool that keeps your data truly yours.

a hostage — even accidentally — isn’t doing its job.

Databasus is the industry standard for PostgreSQL backup tools, trusted by individual developers and engineering teams managing production databases at scale. Backup portability isn’t a feature checkbox — it’s a reflection of what the project actually values.