I had heard/seen that HA now has the ability to do backups on a NAS. Had seen somewhere that there is (should be?) a link to Storage on the Settings page, but I dont see it. Also looked under Settings > System, again no joy.
Anyone point me in the right direction? Using 2023.10.0
Settings → System → Storage
Understand though that the backup is still created on local storage, then copied to the NAS. This could be a concern if you’re trying to limit writes to local storage. For example, if it’s getting full or you’re trying to prolong the life of an SD card.
Depends on the install method. If you are running HA Container, storage is not available. Backups are available but I believe it puts it inside the container which isn’t really useful unless that path is mapped externally. But at that point, you might as well just map your config directory from the container to a local folder and handle backups externally.
Yup, that would explain it. Couldnt find anything in docs, but your explanation makes sense. Another con for using containers. Oh, well, just one more thing to do “hands on. . .”
Just use Samba Backup to an NAS.
Not possible with HA Container.
Yeah that’s HA Container for you. You become the supervisor and manage all add-ons externally.
Tell me, as someone who has never known containers, VM’s, Portainers, etc…
Just what is the appeal of a container? VM?
I just don’t get it.
Why would one need to backup a container, it only requires the persisten volume(s) that the containers use
I use duplicati for all my persistent stuff which are under a fixed folder ‘docker’
Portainer is a package which allows you to manage docker containers, volumes, and images. Docker is the package that actually runs and provides services for/to containers created from images. A VM is a full computer OS installed on a virtual hard drive and can be run on most hardware in a Host-Guest environment.
Docker is a way to install an application/service into an easy to manage sandbox. The application runs within and you have start and stop control, can map folders/files to an external folder, map program variables to external values. A container is like a VM in the sense of control and network services, but it is not a VM in the sense that a container does not have a full OS like a consumer computer and has the bare minimum of other packages to get the application to run. In fact a container can be dependent on the host system Kernel and it’s capabilities.
Installation method can be dependent on the hardware available. In my situation, I already had a Synology NAS. I don’t have an available small computer or RPi. My NAS is also older and a VM wouldn’t run very well on it, not to mention it would be a somewhat unsupported install method. HAOS or HA Supervised is now out of the question. I could have gone with HA Core on the NAS but I really didn’t want to be installing unsupported packages at the system level that would potentially break system services if installed, updated, or otherwise overwritten. So for me, HA Container was the best option which allows me to store my config in a mapped volume and back it up with the built in NAS backup package. It is updated and maintained by Nabu Casa to ensure full functionality and compatibility so I don’t have to worry about that. Sure I now become the supervisor and have to setup any other container myself if I wanted to have an add-on. As long as a docker compose example exists for it, you can set up the container stand alone. Side note, the supervisor of HAOS is an automatic version of Portainer which has been created by Nabu Casa and tailored for HA. In very basic sense, HAOS runs HA Container, the Supervisor just handles all the docker stuff.