Backups and restore

Back up the SQLite database, restore it and keep disk use in check.

Core stores its data in SQLite at ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db, and product logs in logs.db beside it. Both run in WAL mode.

Back up

Always use SQLite’s online backup. Do not copy orion.db alone, because recent writes may live in the -wal file.

sqlite3 "$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db" ".backup '$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).db'"

With Docker Compose:

docker compose -f orion-compose.yaml exec orion-core sqlite3 /data/orion.db ".backup '/data/orion-backup.db'"

Restore

Stop Core and the worker, remove stale WAL files so old frames are not replayed, copy the backup in and start again.

rm -f "$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db-wal" "$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db-shm"
cp ./orion-backup.db "$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db"

Before upgrades

Before applying migrations to an existing database, Core writes a consistent copy to $ORION_DATA_DIR/backups/orion-pre-migrate-<version>-<timestamp>.db and keeps the newest three. To roll back a bad upgrade, stop Core and the worker, restore the newest copy and run the previous image.

Disk space

Log retention defaults to 14 days per app and is pruned hourly. To reclaim space after shrinking retention:

sqlite3 "$ORION_DATA_DIR/orion.db" "PRAGMA auto_vacuum=INCREMENTAL; VACUUM;"