What happens if nethserver itself breaks or becomes unavailable?
In such a case I want to have a migration path to other Linux distributions, and the backup should provide the possibility to access the data needed for such a migration.
How is it possible to manually extract the data from the S3 backup?
Can you probably provide ascript and/or documentation how to do that?
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This is an interesting question with no easy answer. A transparent backup format is a good software quality, like good documentation, too! I cannot give a link to the script you’re asking now.
First of all, download and store in secure place the cluster backup file! It contains the encryption keys required to open Restic backups – Backup and restore — NS8 documentation
Remember, the Backup cannot be restored without encryption keys.
Having say that, the rest of the story is just studying the existing documentation and the code. We can start from Backup & Restore | NS8 dev manual.
Each application adds to the backup set the complete data required to obtain a full restore. The data is organized reflecting the container volumes and the module state/ directory. Everything is put under the /srv directory. In other words, if I explode an app backup I’d expect to find a srv/ directory with all the application data inside.
At this point the remaining part is: how to run Restic in another Linux distribution to extract a NS8 application backup?
Yes, I think it is worth writing a documentation page for it.
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These warnings are not in the documentation; for sysadmin with encrypted backup experience is obvious.
For newbies starting… not that much. Also, this is a key difference between NS7 and NS8 just like the totally different structure of the product.
So please, some scary warnings with the hard truth are necessary 
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No answer yet.
It’s here: Backup and restore — NS8 documentation
Sorry but I do not have enough time right now to setup a testing environment and write down a complete guide.
You can just try to execute a backup and inspect the restic backup content. Checkout also restic documentation which could be very helpful.
don’t worry. No problem. At home I’m doing my backups with restic. Very fast, very effective and very easy too. Usual desktop (archlinux), few raspberrys, tons of pictures and videos, personal data and this kind of stuff in a private household.
I understood that NS8 follows (even for a local USB device) S3 AWS protocol, which means for testing you need a valid cert. I’m not willing to walk this road. The reasons why I already wrote in another thread. Therefore I’m not able to check this very crucial part of any (the new NS8) server (structure).
Maybe someone else can build a test environment and share the experiences?
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