Nobody thinks about Docker backups when everything is working. The dashboard loads. The media server streams. The reverse proxy behaves. The database container has a cute little green “healthy” status. Life is good. Then one day you run an update, delete the wrong volume, lose a disk, break a Compose file, or discover that the “temporary” container from six months ago was actually storing something important. That is when Docker stops feeling magical and starts feeling like archaeology. This post is a practical guide to backing up Docker containers on a Linux home server . Not enterprise disaster recovery. Not Kubernetes. Not a 40-page policy document. Just a realistic backup plan for a homelab running Docker Compose, bind mounts, named volumes and a few services that became more important than expected. The main idea is simple: You do not really back up containers. You back up the things needed to recreate them, plus the data they would destroy your weekend by losing. ...
Practical Linux, homelab and computer security notes: home servers, Docker, UFW, Fail2ban, Lynis, honeypots, old hardware and sysadmin experiments.