Operations

Day-two tasks: keeping it running, upgrading, backing up the backup system, and recovering when the panel itself is lost.

What runs what

Component	Command	Schedule
Transfer worker	php artisan offsite-backups:work	always running
Scheduler	php artisan schedule:run (cron, every minute)	retention, retries, scheduled backups, summaries
Web	the panel itself	—

The transfer worker uses its own queue, separate from the panel's.

Health checks

php artisan offsite-backups:status

Healthy output looks like this:

Queue mode ............ dedicated
Worker ................ online
Stored ................ 14.2 GiB in 38 copies
Queue depth ........... 0
Uploading now ......... 0
Failed (24 h) ......... 0

What to watch:

Signal	Alert when	Meaning
Worker: offline	immediately	no copies will run
Failed (24 h)	above zero for an hour	a destination is broken
Queue depth	above 50 and growing	the worker is stuck or too slow
Stuck copies	any	run offsite-backups:recover

The admin Overview shows the same health, and alerts can go to email or a Discord webhook.

Commands

Command	What it does
offsite-backups:status [--json]	Worker, queue and destination health
offsite-backups:work	The transfer worker (keep it running)
offsite-backups:recover	Requeue stuck copies
offsite-backups:retry --failed	Retry failed copies
offsite-backups:sync	Copy existing backups that have no off-site copy
offsite-backups:prune --dry-run	Show what retention would delete now
offsite-backups:summary --force	Send the daily summary now
offsite-backups:keys	List or export encryption keys
offsite-backups:import DESTINATION	Rebuild records from objects in a bucket
offsite-backups:decrypt IN OUT --kit=FILE	Decrypt a copy outside the panel

Upgrading

1. Note the current state, in case you need to compare afterwards:

   php artisan offsite-backups:status --json > /root/ob-before.json

2. Install the new package over the old one, either through Admin → Extensions → Offsite Backups → Update, or:

   php artisan p:extension:install /path/to/offsite-backups-1.0.1.pteroext --enable
   php artisan optimize:clear

3. Restart the worker so it picks up the new code.

Destinations, rules and copies are kept across an upgrade.

Backing up the extension's own data

The extension keeps three things outside your bucket:

1. Destinations — credentials, encrypted with the panel's APP_KEY. If APP_KEY is lost, they must be re-entered.
2. Encryption keys — stored encrypted with APP_KEY. Export the recovery kits.
3. Copy records — which object belongs to which server and backup.

A normal database dump covers all three, but only alongside the same APP_KEY. Keep the two together, somewhere safe.

The buckets themselves are the real backup: each copy folder's manifest.json is enough to rebuild records with offsite-backups:import.

Disaster recovery: the panel is gone

You still have the bucket. The goal is to get files out of it.

With a new panel and this extension installed:

php artisan offsite-backups:import 1 --dry-run   # 1 = destination id
php artisan offsite-backups:import 1

It walks the bucket, reads each manifest.json, and recreates backup records for the servers it finds. Servers must exist on the new panel with the same identifiers for restores to attach cleanly; copies for missing servers become orphans, which can be restored into any server.

With no panel at all:

1. List the bucket with your provider's tools and find the archive you need.
2. Download it.
3. If it is encrypted, decrypt it with the recovery kit.
4. Extract it into the server's volume directory on the node, then start the server.
5. Fix ownership so the game server can read the files.

The manifest.json beside each archive tells you the original name, size, checksum, server and time.

Retention

Setting	Effect
Keep newest N copies	Per server, per destination. Older copies are deleted from storage.
Grandfather-father-son	Keeps daily, weekly, monthly and yearly representatives.
Delete copies older than N days	A hard age limit, applied after the rules above.
Keep only this many local backups	How many stay on the node once copies are verified.
Delete the node copy after upload	Removes the local archive once the copy is verified.

Locked backups and unverified copies are never deleted. Preview a retention change before trusting it:

php artisan offsite-backups:prune --dry-run

Capacity planning

Each copy adds only a few KB of metadata, so total size is roughly the number of copies multiplied by the archive size.

Watch for:

• Temporary space — each upload part is buffered in the panel's storage. Leave a few hundred MB free.
• Database growth — one row per copy plus events. Tens of thousands of copies is fine.
• Download costs — restores and downloads cost money on S3, B2 and Wasabi; R2 and Hetzner do not charge.

Security

• Destination credentials are encrypted at rest and never shown again after saving.
• Connections to private network addresses are blocked by default, per destination.
• Download links are single-use, expire after 15 minutes by default, and can require a login.
• Every restore, download, delete and settings change is written to the audit log.
• Subusers only see what their Offsite Backups permissions allow.

Review the Activity page after any staffing change.