Backup and Restore

Dagu keeps all of its state in files, so a backup is a copy of those files. No database dump is needed.

What to back up

The paths below are relative to DAGU_HOME. Without DAGU_HOME, configuration and DAGs are in ~/.config/dagu, and data/ and logs/ are in ~/.local/share/dagu. dagu config shows the paths in use.

Path	Contents	Back up
config.yaml, base.yaml, calendars/	Configuration, shared DAG defaults, business calendars	Required
dags/	DAG definitions and the Wiki	Required, unless Git holds them all
data/auth/	The encryption key and the sign-in token secret	Required. Handle it as a secret.
data/secrets/	Encrypted secrets	Required
data/users/, data/apikeys/, data/webhooks/, data/workspaces/	People, API keys, webhooks, workspaces	Required
data/license/	Server ID and license	Required. Without it, the server registers as new and takes another license slot.
data/scheduler/	Schedule state, excluding locks/	Required for catch-up
The rest of data/	Run history, queues, artifacts, notification settings	Recommended
logs/	Run logs	As your retention policy needs
logs/admin/audit/	Audit logs	As your retention policy needs

Leave these out. They describe processes that will not exist after a restore:

• data/proc/
• data/service-registry/
• data/scheduler/locks/
• data/cache/

Keep the encryption key

Secrets, and other values Dagu encrypts, can only be read with the key in data/auth/encryption_key, or DAGU_ENCRYPTION_KEY if that is set. If the key is missing, Dagu generates a new one and the old values cannot be read. Store the backup as carefully as the secrets it protects.

Back up

For a consistent copy, stop Dagu first. This example has DAGU_HOME=/srv/dagu:

sudo systemctl stop dagu-scheduler dagu-server

sudo tar -C /srv -czf /backup/dagu-$(date +%F).tar.gz \
  --exclude='dagu/data/proc' \
  --exclude='dagu/data/service-registry' \
  --exclude='dagu/data/scheduler/locks' \
  --exclude='dagu/data/cache' \
  dagu

sudo systemctl start dagu-scheduler dagu-server

To back up without stopping, take an atomic snapshot of the volume, using LVM, ZFS, or your NFS filer. Copying files from a live system can capture one file before a change and a related file after it.

In an active and standby pair, stop Dagu on both hosts, or the other host keeps writing during the copy.

Restore

1. Stop Dagu on every host.

2. Restore the files to the same absolute path. The data directory is part of each slot's run ID, so a different path gives slots new IDs.

   sudo tar -C /srv -xzf /backup/dagu-2026-11-09.tar.gz
   sudo chown -R dagu:dagu /srv/dagu

3. Review DAGs that set catchup_window. When the scheduler starts, they replay slots missed since the backup, up to their window. Start dagu server first and suspend any that must not run.

4. Start the scheduler.

5. Confirm the result:

   dagu history --limit 5
   curl -s http://localhost:8090/health # dagu scheduler only, not start-all

   Open a DAG that uses a secret and run it, to confirm the encryption key was restored.

A run that was in progress when the backup was taken has a status of running. Dagu detects that its process is gone and marks it failed.

Test your backups

Restore to a separate host on a schedule you can defend, and run one workflow that uses a secret. A backup you have not restored is an assumption.