System Backup Policies
System backup policies (Storage > System Backup Policies) take server backups automatically on a schedule, without users or per-server schedules being involved. A policy covers a set of servers, runs on a cron schedule, and cleans up after itself with retention rules.
The list shows each policy's ID, Name, Schedule (the cron expression), Backups (how many it has taken), and Created, with a Disabled badge on disabled policies and a Run pending badge while a run is due. Use the search box to filter.
Creating a Policy
Click Create in the top right.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name / Description | Display name and optional free text. |
| Backup Configuration | Which backup configuration the policy's backups are written to. Defaults to Inherit from Server, the same resolution a manual backup would use. |
| Schedule | "Cron expression (with seconds) that determines when backups are taken, in UTC." |
| Keep count | "Maximum number of successful backups to keep per server. Leave empty for no limit." |
| Keep days | "Delete backups older than this many days. Leave empty for no limit." |
| Parallelism | "Maximum number of backups this policy runs at the same time on a single node." |
| Enabled | "Disabled policies keep their backups but do not take new ones." |
An existing policy also offers Run Now (after a Confirm Manual Run dialog; every covered server without a backup from this run yet gets backed up, and covered servers are processed oldest-attempt first) and Delete.
Which Servers Are Covered
The Locations, Nodes, and Servers tabs scope the policy; each has an Add button and right-click Remove. A server is covered when it matches any of the three: it sits in an assigned location, runs on an assigned node, or is assigned directly.
Covered is not the same as backed up on every run: servers that are mid-transfer or in a status like installing or restoring are skipped for that run, and nodes in maintenance mode are skipped entirely. Due-ness is tracked per server (the cron having fired since that server's last policy backup), so skipped or newly added servers catch up on the next tick.
Backups
The Backups tab lists every backup the policy has taken, searchable: Name, Server, Node, Checksum, Size, Files, and Created, each row tagged with a SYSTEM badge and carrying a download action. Policy backups do not count towards each server's backup limit and are not rotated by backup groups; the policy's own Keep count and Keep days rules manage them instead.
Deleting a Policy
Deleting asks whether to also delete the policy's backups (Do you want to delete backups created by this policy?):
- Switch on: "All backups created by this policy will be permanently deleted from their storage backends."
- Switch off: "Backups created by this policy will become regular server backups. They will count towards each server backup limit and follow standard rotation."
INFO
The buttons on these pages follow the system-backup-policies.* admin permission keys (create, read, update, delete, backups). See the Permissions Reference.