Backup DigitalOcean droplet locally

backup_digitalocean.md

DigitalOcean does not provide a way to download a snapshot of your droplet locally. You can use rsync to accomplish this instead.

On your local machine, assuming you have added your-server in your SSH config:

rsync -aAXHv --append-verify --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} your-server:/

• -a : archive mode (all files, with permissions, etc.)
• -A : preserve ACLs/permissions (not included with -a)
• -X : preserve extended attributes (not included with -a)
• -H : preserve hard links (not included with -a)
• -v : verbose, mention files
• --append-verify: if the files differ in modification or other timestamps, it will overwrite the target with the source without scrutinizing those files further

Very useful my friend, thank you 😊

On macos I had to slightly modify the command (note the ./ in the end that specifies dst folder):

rsync --recursive --ignore-existing --progress --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} root@ip:/ ./

Great work - thanks. I was just looking how to do this.

This didn't exclude the files that were told to exclude for me. I had to create a new file (exclude.txt) listing the folders to be excluded

/dev/*
/proc/*
/sys/*
/tmp/*
/run/*
/mnt/*
/media/*
/lost+found

and then change to rsync command to:
rsync --recursive --ignore-existing --progress --exclude-from='exclude.txt' root@ip:/ ./

Thanks!

you wont be able to restore a droplet with this can you?

I was looking to store a pre-configured droplet I dont need know to be able to lateron restore it easily.
Linode supports this digitealocean are criminals to letting us not do this, ofcourse it will hurt there business.

Thanks mate!

Thanks!

is it possible to restore ?