Modern infrastructures are not limited to files stored on traditional filesystems. Your data may reside in various services, databases, or cloud storage solutions.
In the first two parts of this quickstart, we created a Kloset Store and performed a backup of local filesystem data, and then synchronized that Kloset Store to a second location to improve durability.
In this guide, we will create a backup of an S3 bucket using plakar. The same logic applies to any other data source supported by plakar through its various connectors.
Requirements
After following the previous parts of this quickstart, you should have:
- plakar is installed on your system (see the Installation guide).
- A Kloset Store on your local filesystem at
$HOME/backups. - A S3-compatible storage location configured in your plakar configuration file under the name
s3-backups(see Part 2 of this quickstart).
Initialize the S3 bucket with some data
Before we can back up an S3 bucket, we need to have one with some data in it. If you already have an S3 bucket you want to back up, you can skip this step.
If, instead, you followed the previous part of this quickstart and set up a local MinIO instance, you can use it to create a test bucket.
Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:9001. Log in with the default credentials minioadmin / minioadmin.
Click on the “Create bucket” button, and enter mydata as the bucket name.
Then, click on the “Upload” button, and upload a few files of your choice to the bucket.
Configure the S3 source in plakar
Similarly to how we configured the S3 store in Part 2 of this quickstart, we need to let plakar know about the S3 source we want to back up.
Run the following command to create the new source:
1plakar source add mydata \
2 location=s3://localhost:9000/mydata \
3 access_key=minioadmin \
4 secret_access_key=minioadmin \
5 use_tls=false
This command creates a new source named mydata that points to the mydata bucket on the MinIO server running at localhost:9000. It uses the access key and secret key provided above. The use_tls=false option is specified because we are connecting to a local server without TLS.
use_tls should be omitted or set to true when connecting to production S3-compatible services that use TLS.
Create the backup
To create a backup of the S3 bucket to the local Kloset Store at $HOME/backups, run the following command:
1plakar at $HOME/backups backup @mydata
As you can see, the alias @mydata is used to reference the source previously configured.
To verify that the backup was created successfully, you can list the snapshots in the local Kloset Store:
1$ plakar at $HOME/backups ls
22025-12-16T12:55:30Z 842de8b1 496 B 0s / # the backup of the S3 bucket we just created
32025-12-15T21:09:32Z 772fba5f 2.9 MiB 0s /private/etc # the previous backup, from Part 1
Note that in this example, we created the backup to a store hosted on the local filesystem. It is perfectly possible to back up S3 data directly to another S3 location, or any other supported store, using plakar at @store-name backup @source-name.
Restore the backup
It is also possible to restore a snapshot directly to an S3 location.
To do so, first configure a new destination:
1plakar destination add mydata \
2 location=s3://localhost:9000/mydata \
3 access_key=minioadmin \
4 secret_access_key=minioadmin \
5 use_tls=false
use_tls should be omitted or set to true when connecting to production S3-compatible services that use TLS.
And then, restore the snapshot to that destination:
1plakar at $HOME/backups restore -to @mydata 842de8b1
2repository passphrase:
3info: 842de8b1: OK ✓ /
4info: 842de8b1: OK ✓ /Makefile
5info: restore: restoration of 842de8b1:/ at @mydata completed successfully
For the restore command, we used the alias again with @mydata which references the S3 destination we just configured.
Congratulations!
You have successfully created a backup of an S3 bucket using plakar, and restored it back to the S3 location.
This guide demonstrated how to back up non-filesystem data using plakar. The same principles apply to any other data source supported by plakar through its various connectors.
Next steps
There is plenty more to discover about plakar. Here are our suggestions on what to try next:
- Learn more about the core concepts behind Plakar.
- Create a schedule for your backups
- Discover more about the plakar command syntax