confluence auto backup on AWS
Asked by Amitesh Pandey:

Is there a way out to automate the backup of confluence to AWS S3.


Answers:
author: Stephen Sifers
body: Hello Amitesh and welcome to the Community!

Backing up Confluence is already a great idea, the answer is not always clear cut since each business need is different from the next. I will try to simplify your options for backing up Confluence.

**Server;**

The first part is to remember that while Confluence does come with an internal backup process, it is not recommended to use this as your sole solution for your backups. Here are recommendations on how to handle backing up Confluence server:

1. Create a backup or dump of your database using tools provided by your database.   
   If your database doesn't support online backups, you will need to stop Confluence while you do this. This process may be automated to create a database dump or backup file.
2. Create a file system backup of your home directory (both local home and shared home for Data Center). This process can be automated via scripts and scheduled to occur around the same time as your database dump/backup.
   1. Ensure the following are backed up:
      1. **\<conf-home\>/confluence.cfg.xml**
      2. **\<conf-home\>/attachments**
      3. Optional:**\<conf-home\>/config**
      4. Optional: **\<conf-home\>/index**
3. Once you have the data above backed up, you may then send it over to Amazon S3 for storage. This can be accomplished using a script to copy the data or other methods available to you.

If you did wish to use Confluence's internal backup to back itself, you may follow the provided documentation at [Configuring Backups](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-backups-138348.html). Along with this, there is documentation to cover backing up the data directly at [Production Backup Strategy](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/production-backup-strategy-38797389.html).

**Cloud;**

With Confluence Cloud you will not have access to the database itself, nor will you have access to the conf-home directory and files. This backup process will be more of an export from Confluence cloud then it will be of a backup. Here are the steps to backup(export) your Confluence cloud site:

**To back up all data of your Confluence instance:**

1. Do either of the following:
   1. If your site has multiple Cloud applications, choose the cog icon at the top right, then choose **Confluence Admin** . Choose**Backup Manager** in the left-hand navigation panel.
   2. If your site has Confluence only, choose **Settings** in the Confluence sidebar in the header, then choose **Backup Manager**.
2. If you want to include attachments, select **Back up attachments**
3. Choose **Create Backup**
4. After the backup is complete, you will see the link to the backup file. You can download the file by following the link.

Source documentation: [Create a site backup](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/create-a-site-backup-724765526.html)

Once you have your backup(export) from your Confluence cloud site, you may then send it over to Amazon S3 for storage. This can be accomplished using a script to copy the data or other methods available to you.

**Amazon S3;**

Amazon does have great documentation to follow for upload data (In this case, your backups) into their cloud storage. You may find their documentation for this at [Batch upload files to the cloud](https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/tutorials/backup-to-s3-cli/).

I hope this information above proves helpful with sending your backups to Amazon S3 storage.

Regards,  
Stephen Sifers