---
title: Upgrades and backups
description: Upgrade Vectana to a new version, and back up and restore the database.
---

## Back up

All data lives in PostgreSQL. Back it up regularly, and **always before upgrading**.

```bash
mkdir -p backups && chmod 700 backups
docker compose exec -T db pg_dump -U vectana vectana | gzip > backups/vectana-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S).sql.gz
```

Keep a copy of `.env` somewhere safe too — it holds `SECRET_KEY` and your passwords.

## Upgrade

1. **Read what changed**

    Check the [releases](https://github.com/techolve/vectana/releases) and the [changelog](https://github.com/techolve/vectana/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) for the new version.

2. **Back up**

    Back up the database as shown above.

3. **Change the version and restart**

    Set `VECTANA_VERSION` in `.env` to the new version, then pull and restart.

    ```bash
    docker compose pull
    docker compose up -d
    ```

    On start, `migrate` brings the database schema up to date automatically.

4. **Check it**

    ```bash
    docker compose logs migrate        # "Running upgrade ..." means the schema was updated
    curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/api/health
    ```

## Roll back

Database migrations only move forward. To go back to an older version, set `VECTANA_VERSION` back and restore the backup you took before upgrading.

```bash
docker compose stop app worker
docker compose exec -T db psql -U vectana -d postgres -c "DROP DATABASE vectana WITH (FORCE);" -c "CREATE DATABASE vectana OWNER vectana;"
gunzip -c backups/vectana-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.sql.gz | docker compose exec -T db psql -U vectana -d vectana
docker compose up -d
```