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Back up PMM Server Podman container

Create a backup of your PMM Server data to protect against data loss, prepare for upgrades, or migrate to another system.

Summary
  • Stop the PMM Server service
  • Export the data volume to a backup file

Backing up Grafana plugins

Grafana plugins have been moved to the /srv directory since PMM 2.23.0. So if you are upgrading PMM from a version before 2.23.0 and have installed additional plugins, you’ll need to reinstall them after the upgrade.

To check used Grafana plugins:

podman exec -t pmm-server ls -l /var/lib/grafana/plugins

Back up procedure

To back up your PMM Server container:

  1. Stop the PMM Server service:

    systemctl --user stop pmm-server
    
  2. Wait for the container to fully stop:

    podman wait --condition=stopped pmm-server || true
    sleep 30
    
  3. Export the data volume to a backup file. If you changed the default name in the PMM_VOLUME_NAME environment variable, use that name after export instead of pmm-server (which is the default volume name):

    podman volume export pmm-server --output pmm-server-backup.tar
    
  4. Verify the backup file was created successfully:

    ls -lh pmm-server-backup.tar
    

  5. Store the backup in a secure location, preferably outside the current server.

Backup storage recommendations

  • Store backups in a location separate from the PMM Server host
  • Implement automated rotation of backups to manage disk space
  • Consider encrypting backups containing sensitive monitoring data
  • Test restores periodically to verify backup integrity