Backup guide

About CVAT data volumes

Docker volumes are used to store all CVAT data:

  • cvat_db: PostgreSQL database files, used to store information about users, tasks, projects, annotations, etc. Mounted into cvat_db container by /var/lib/postgresql/data path.

  • cvat_data: used to store uploaded and prepared media data. Mounted into cvat container by /home/django/data path.

  • cvat_keys: used to store user ssh keys needed for synchronization with a remote Git repository. Mounted into cvat container by /home/django/keys path.

  • cvat_logs: used to store logs of CVAT backend processes managed by supevisord. Mounted into cvat container by /home/django/logs path.

  • cvat_events: this is an optional volume that is used only when Analytics component is enabled and is used to store Elasticsearch database files. Mounted into cvat_elasticsearch container by /usr/share/elasticsearch/data path.

How to backup all CVAT data

All CVAT containers should be stopped before backup:

docker-compose stop

Please don’t forget to include all the compose config files that were used in the docker-compose command using the -f parameter.

Backup data:

mkdir backup
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat_db -v $(pwd)/backup:/backup ubuntu tar -cjvf /backup/cvat_db.tar.bz2 /var/lib/postgresql/data
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat -v $(pwd)/backup:/backup ubuntu tar -cjvf /backup/cvat_data.tar.bz2 /home/django/data
# [optional]
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat_elasticsearch -v $(pwd)/backup:/backup ubuntu tar -cjvf /backup/cvat_events.tar.bz2 /usr/share/elasticsearch/data

Make sure the backup archives have been created, the output of ls backup command should look like this:

ls backup
cvat_data.tar.bz2  cvat_db.tar.bz2  cvat_events.tar.bz2

How to restore CVAT from backup

Note: CVAT containers must exist (if no, please follow the installation guide). Stop all CVAT containers:

docker-compose stop

Restore data:

cd <path_to_backup_folder>
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat_db -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu bash -c "cd /var/lib/postgresql/data && tar -xvf /backup/cvat_db.tar.bz2 --strip 4"
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu bash -c "cd /home/django/data && tar -xvf /backup/cvat_data.tar.bz2 --strip 3"
# [optional]
docker run --rm --name temp_backup --volumes-from cvat_elasticsearch -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu bash -c "cd /usr/share/elasticsearch/data && tar -xvf /backup/cvat_events.tar.bz2 --strip 4"

After that run CVAT as usual:

docker-compose up -d

Additional resources

Docker guide about volume backups