Go to Settings › Operations › Backup and restore. The page has two panels: Backup history (all backups, manual, scheduled and uploaded) and Schedules (automatic backups and the retention period).

1. Backup content

Each backup contains one or more of these parts:

Backup content	What it holds
Content and settings	Reports, models, users and system settings: the data directory of the bundled PostgreSQL database. The AI Agent stores its data in the same database, so this also includes AI conversation history, LLM profiles and their encrypted API keys.
Uploaded data files	Data files uploaded to Datafor, such as Excel and CSV datasets.
Application files	Only the Datafor program, its plugins and JDBC drivers. It does not include the AI Agent program.

When Content and settings is not selected, the backup dialog warns "This backup leaves out reports, models and users."

Backups are stored as .zip files in the backup/ folder of the Datafor installation directory (the folder that contains tomcat and pentaho-solutions).

What backups do not include

No backup includes the ai-agent/ folder, and in particular not ai-agent/instance-secrets.env. That file holds MODEL_PROFILE_ENCRYPTION_KEY, the key that encrypts the LLM API keys stored in the database.

• Restoring on the same server: nothing extra to do; the key file is still there.
• Restoring on a new server: copy ai-agent/instance-secrets.env from the old server to the new one as well. Without the original key, the stored LLM API keys cannot be decrypted and must all be entered again.
• Keep a copy of instance-secrets.env in a safe place together with your downloaded backups.

2. Back up now

1. In Backup history, click Back up now.
2. In the New backup dialog, select the Backup content. Content and settings is selected by default.
3. Click OK. "Backup task has been successfully created." appears and the backup is added to the list.

The Status column shows a green dot when a backup succeeded, a red dot when it failed (hover over it for the error), and a spinner while it is running; the list refreshes itself while a backup runs. Use Refresh to reload the list, and the search box to find backups by time, creator, status or backup content.

3. Upload a backup package

Click Upload backup and select a backup package (.zip), for example one downloaded from another Datafor server. The upload starts as soon as you select the file; the package then appears in Backup history and can be restored. If the server refuses the upload, for example because the package is already there, "The file already exists" appears.

4. Row actions: restore, delete, download

Hover over a row in Backup history to show its actions in the Actions column:

Action	What it does
Restore	Restores the system from this backup. Available only for successful backups. See below.
Delete	Deletes the backup permanently.
Download	Downloads the backup package.

To delete several backups at once, select their check boxes and click Delete in the panel header.

Restore a backup

1. Click Restore on the backup row.
2. Read the message: restoring deletes all changes made to the system after this backup.
3. Type RESTORE in the box ("Type RESTORE to confirm.").
4. Click Restore and restart the system. Datafor restores the backup and restarts.

Warning

Restoring overwrites everything made after the backup was taken. Back up the current state first if you may need it again.

5. Schedules

The Schedules panel lists automatic backups with Schedule name, Backup content, Last run, Next run and Creator. Hover over a row to Edit or Delete a schedule.

To add a schedule:

1. Click New schedule.
2. Enter a Schedule name and select the Backup content.
3. Choose Repeat: Run once, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly or Cron (then enter a Cron string).
4. Set the Start time (not for Cron) and the Start date. For repeating schedules, choose No end date or Ending with an end date.
5. Click Save.

Backups created by a schedule appear in Backup history.

Backup retention days

Backup retention days in the panel header sets how long backups are kept. The value is saved automatically about a second after you change it.

• 0 keeps all backups.
• A value above 0 deletes backups older than that number of days, together with their files. The clean-up runs once a day and applies to all backups in Backup history, not only those created by schedules.

6. Keep a copy off the server

Backups are stored on the same server as Datafor. Download important backups and keep them outside the Datafor server, so that they survive a disk or server failure.