Run a manual backup

You can create a backup manually, on-demand. This is useful during “lift-and-shift” migrations or prior to upgrades.

Prerequisite

Before you perform a backup you must put Domino into maintenance mode. See the domino-maintenance-mode readme.

Manually generate a backup

Run the following command to scale the domino-data-importer statefulset up to 1 replica:

platform_ns="$(kubectl get namespace -l domino-platform -o name)"
platform_ns="${platform_ns#namespace/}"
kubectl scale sts -n $platform_ns domino-data-importer --replicas=1

When the domino-data-importer pod is up, run the following code to exec into it:
```
kubectl -n $platform_ns exec -it domino-data-importer-0 /bin/bash
```
In the domino-data-importer pod, run the backup command:
```
importer backup --upload --archive --delete
```
Remove the --delete flag if you want the backup bundle to remain on the local filesystem.

This command can take a long time, depending on the size of your backup. To prevent a timeout interrupting the command, Domino recommends using a terminal multiplexer tool like the container’s /app/tmux so that if your session is disconnected, the command continues running in the background and you can return to the session when you reconnect. For instructions about how to use tmux, see their website or man page man tmux.

Find the backup bundle in the backup location when it is generated automatically.

When the backup is done, scale the domino-data-importer statefulset back to 0.