Backup & Restore

Enterprise provides binary bundle and unbundle API endpoints for database backup, migration between servers, and disaster recovery. A bundle captures the complete state of a database — schema, data, and commit history — in a single binary payload.

Bundle (export)

Create a bundle of an entire database:

curl -s -X POST \
  -H "$AUTH" \
  "$SERVER/api/bundle/admin/MyDatabase" \
  --output MyDatabase-backup.bundle

The response is a binary payload containing the full database state. Save it to a file for later restoration or transfer to another server.

What a bundle contains

A bundle is a self-contained snapshot that includes:

• All documents in the instance graph
• The complete schema
• The full commit history (all branches, all commits)
• Layer data from the underlying immutable store

Bundles are deterministic — bundling the same database state twice produces the same binary output.

Unbundle (import)

Restore a bundle into a new data product. First create the target database, then unbundle into it:

# Create a new data product for the restore
curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "$AUTH" \
  -d '{"label": "My Database (restored)", "comment": "Restored from backup"}' \
  "$SERVER/api/db/admin/MyDatabase-restored"

# Restore the bundle into the new data product
curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/octets" \
  -H "$AUTH" \
  --data-binary @MyDatabase-backup.bundle \
  "$SERVER/api/unbundle/admin/MyDatabase-restored"

The target database must already exist before unbundling. The unbundle operation replaces the database contents with the bundle's state, including all history. Restoring to a separate data product lets you verify the backup before replacing the original.

Use cases

Scheduled backups

Run a cron job to create nightly backups:

#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d)
curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Basic $AUTH_TOKEN" \
  "http://localhost:6363/api/bundle/admin/production" \
  --output "/backups/production-${DATE}.bundle"

Server migration

Move a database between servers:

# On the source server
curl -s -X POST -H "$AUTH" \
  "$SOURCE_SERVER/api/bundle/admin/MyDatabase" \
  --output MyDatabase.bundle

# On the target server
curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "$AUTH" \
  -d '{"label": "My Database"}' \
  "$TARGET_SERVER/api/db/admin/MyDatabase"

curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/octets" -H "$AUTH" \
  --data-binary @MyDatabase.bundle \
  "$TARGET_SERVER/api/unbundle/admin/MyDatabase"

Disaster recovery

Store bundles in an object store (S3, GCS, Azure Blob) for off-site recovery. Bundles are binary files that use succinct data structure which makes them very compact.

API reference

POST /api/bundle/{path}

Creates a binary bundle of the database at {path}.

• Authentication: Required
• Response Content-Type: application/octets
• Response: Binary bundle payload

POST /api/unbundle/{path}

Restores a binary bundle into the database at {path}.

• Authentication: Required
• Request Content-Type: application/octets
• Request body: Binary bundle payload
• Response: JSON success confirmation

Further reading

• Enterprise Overview — all enterprise features
• Configuration Reference — environment variables