SLV Backup - Quickstart | SLV - The Toolkit for Solana Devs

🗄️ SLV Backup

SLV Backup creates encrypted, incremental backups of your node using restic. All data is encrypted client-side with AES-256 before upload — the server never sees your plaintext data.

Legacy mode: SLV also supports unencrypted tar+zstd backups (without --restic). We strongly recommend using --restic for all new backups.

Prerequisites

SLV CLI installed on the target node
sudo access (required for full-disk backup)
Logged in (slv login) with an active storage subscription
restic installed (apt install restic)

Create an Encrypted Backup

bash

sudo slv backup create --restic --yes

sudo slv backup create --restic --yes

text

🗄️  SLV Backup (restic mode)

  Region:    default
  Retention: 7 days

⚠️  Restic encryption password generated and saved to:
   /home/solv/.slv/restic-password
   BACK UP THIS FILE — without it, backups cannot be restored.

🔧 Initializing restic repository (if needed)...
📦 Creating restic backup...

Files:       151263 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
Dirs:        22486 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
Added to the repository: 4.107 GiB (1.837 GiB stored)

processed 151263 files, 4.366 GiB in 0:50
snapshot b6925e6d saved

✅ Restic backup complete
🧹 Applying retention policy (keep within 7 days)...
✅ Backup complete.

🗄️  SLV Backup (restic mode)

  Region:    default
  Retention: 7 days

⚠️  Restic encryption password generated and saved to:
   /home/solv/.slv/restic-password
   BACK UP THIS FILE — without it, backups cannot be restored.

🔧 Initializing restic repository (if needed)...
📦 Creating restic backup...

Files:       151263 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
Dirs:        22486 new,     0 changed,     0 unmodified
Added to the repository: 4.107 GiB (1.837 GiB stored)

processed 151263 files, 4.366 GiB in 0:50
snapshot b6925e6d saved

✅ Restic backup complete
🧹 Applying retention policy (keep within 7 days)...
✅ Backup complete.

What happens on first run

A random encryption password is generated and saved to ~/.slv/restic-password (mode 0600)
A restic repository is initialized on ERPC Cloud Storage
Your entire disk is backed up (excluding system pseudo-filesystems)

Subsequent runs

Only changed files are uploaded (incremental). Deduplication keeps storage costs low.

List Backups

bash

sudo slv backup list

sudo slv backup list

Shows both restic snapshots and legacy tar backups in cloud storage.

Restore from Backup

Restore the latest snapshot:

bash

sudo slv backup restore latest

sudo slv backup restore latest

Restore a specific snapshot:

bash

sudo slv backup restore b6925e6d

sudo slv backup restore b6925e6d

Restore a legacy tar backup:

bash

sudo slv backup restore backup-mynode-20260318.tar.zst

sudo slv backup restore backup-mynode-20260318.tar.zst

Verify Backup Integrity

bash

sudo restic -r rest:https://<apiKey>:[email protected]/v3/storage/restic/ \
  --password-file ~/.slv/restic-password check

sudo restic -r rest:https://<apiKey>:[email protected]/v3/storage/restic/ \
  --password-file ~/.slv/restic-password check

Set Up Automated Backups (Cron)

bash

sudo slv backup create --restic --cron daily

sudo slv backup create --restic --cron daily

Interval	Description
`daily`	Run once a day
`weekly`	Run once a week
`monthly`	Run once a month
`off`	Remove the cron job

Retention

By default, snapshots older than 7 days are automatically pruned:

bash

sudo slv backup create --restic --retention 14

sudo slv backup create --restic --retention 14

Customize Excludes

View the current exclude list:

bash

slv backup create --list-excludes

slv backup create --list-excludes

Add additional exclude paths:

bash

sudo slv backup create --restic --exclude /home/solv/ledger --exclude /home/solv/snapshots

sudo slv backup create --restic --exclude /home/solv/ledger --exclude /home/solv/snapshots

Encryption & Security

Feature	Detail
Encryption	AES-256-CTR + Poly1305-AES (client-side)
Integrity	SHA-256 content-addressable storage
Deduplication	Content-defined chunking
Server-side visibility	None — server only sees encrypted blobs
Password file	`~/.slv/restic-password` (mode 0600)
Excluded from backup	`~/.slv/restic-password`, `~/.slv/api.yml`, `~/.slv/backup.env`

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Back up your ~/.slv/restic-password file separately. Without it, your backups are irrecoverably lost.

Options Reference

Option	Description
`--restic`	Use restic for encrypted incremental backup (recommended)
`-r, --region <region>`	Storage region (default: eu)
`--exclude <path>`	Additional paths to exclude (repeatable)
`--include <path>`	Remove from default excludes (repeatable)
`--list-excludes`	Show current exclude list and exit
`--retention <days>`	Prune snapshots older than N days (default: 7)
`--cron <interval>`	Set up cron job (daily/weekly/monthly/off)
`-y, --yes`	Skip confirmation prompts
`--upload`	Legacy: upload tar backup to cloud storage
`-o, --output <path>`	Legacy: output file path for tar backup

Legacy Mode (tar+zstd)

For backward compatibility, unencrypted tar backups are still supported:

bash

sudo slv backup create --upload --yes     # Unencrypted tar backup

sudo slv backup create --upload --yes     # Unencrypted tar backup

Note: Legacy backups are not encrypted. We recommend migrating to --restic for all new backups.