Backups

Everything Tidemark knows lives in two places.

What Where
Your statistics, users, sites and goals The database. For SQLite it is the file database/database.sqlite
Your configuration The .env file in the project folder

Code and dependencies are not worth backing up: they come from the release zip.

MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL

Use your host's database backup (cPanel's Backup or phpMyAdmin → Export), or mysqldump  / pg_dump  if you have a shell. Take one before every major update.

SQLite

Copy database/database.sqlite  while the site is quiet. If you have a shell, sqlite3 database/database.sqlite ".backup backup.sqlite"  is safe even under traffic.

Keep .env  safe

APP_KEY  signs sessions and, unless you set TIDEMARK_SALT , seeds visitor ids. A lost .env  doesn't lose data, but everyone is signed out and today's visitor ids change.

Restoring

  1. Upload the release zip of the version you are restoring and unzip it.
  2. Put your .env  back.
  3. Restore the database.

Updates also write their own code backups to storage/app/updates/backups/ . Those cover code only, not data.