Backup and Restore

To backup and restore dotCMS, it's recommended that you use external backup tools, as they provide the best and fastest results.

• Performing a Backup
  • Recommended Tools
• Restoring from Backup

Performing a Backup

To completely backup dotCMS, you need to backup the following 6 resources:

1. Your database
   • Please see the Database Backup documentation for more information
2. Your Assets
   • /dotserver/tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/assets
3. Your static Plugins folder
   • /plugins
   • Important:
     • If changes to your dotCMS configuration are properly configured via configuration plugin, this is the only folder you need to backup to ensure your configuration changes are saved.
     • If you've made configuration changes without using the configuration plugin, you will also need to manually backup all configuration files anywhere in the /dotserver hierarchy that you have changed.
4. Your OSGI (dynamic) plugins folder
   • /dotserver/tomcat-8.0.18/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/felix/load
5. Your ElasticSearch indexes
   • /dotserver/tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/dotsecure/esdata
6. Your license files
   • /dotserver/tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/dotsecure/license.dat
   • /dotserver/tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/dotsecure/server_id.dat

Recommended Tools

You may choose any appropriate tool to backup each resource, but please keep in mind the following recommendations:

• Make sure to use a database backup tool which is specifically designed for your database.
  • For more information, please see the Database Backup documentation.
• For file and folder backup, we recommend that you use tools which can provide a complete snapshot of both the properties and contents (including permissions, dates, and symbolic links), such as tar or rsync.
• dotCMS provides command line tools to allow the backup of the running elasticsearch indexes.
  • For more information, please see the Managing Site Indexes documentation.

Restoring from Backup

The following basic procedure can be used to restore your dotCMS installation from a previous backup.

Important: Even if your existing installation does not function properly, it is strongly recommended that you make a full backup of your existing installation before overwriting it with a backup. Please see Performing a Backup, above, for more information.

1. Create a new dotCMS installation from the dotCMS distribution
   • Note: You must make sure that the version of dotCMS matches the version of dotCMS you performed a backup of.
2. Restore your database
   • If a database exists with the same name as the backed up database, rename or drop (delete) the existing database.
   • Create a new database with the same name as the original database.
   • Restore your database backup into the new database.
     • For more information, please see the Database Backup documentation.
3. Restore the Assets directory from your backup
   • Copy the assets folder from your backup to /dotserver/tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/.
4. Restore the static Plugins folder from your backup
   • Copy the /plugins folder from your backup to the root of the new dotCMS installation.
   • Important:
     • If all changes to your dotCMS configuration are properly configured via configuration plugin, this is the only folder you need to restore.
     • If you've made configuration changes without using the configuration plugin, you will also need to manually restore all configuration files anywhere in the /dotserver hierarchy that you changed.
5. Restore the OSGI plugins folder from your backup
   • Copy the /dotserver/tomcat-8.0.18/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/felix/load folder from your backup to the same location in the new dotCMS installation.
6. Restore the ElasticSearch index files from your backup
   • Copy the esdata folder from your backup to /dotserver/Tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/dotsecure/.
7. Restore the license files from your backup.
   • Copy the license.dat and server_id.dat files from your backup to the /dotserver/Tomcat-X.xx/webapps/ROOT/dotsecure/.
8. Redeploy your dotCMS plugins
   • Run the deploy-plugins script (from the root of the new dotCMS installation):
     • Linux:       bin/deploy-plugins.sh
     • Windows: bin\deploy-plugins.bat
9. Start dotCMS
10. Restore your Content Index
    • Once dotCMS is running, restore the content index through the admin panel or via the command line.