Environment variables¶

The container reads its whole configuration from the environment. The CLI reads a few options from the environment too, so credentials and the timezone never have to pass through command-line flags.

This page explains how ezbak turns environment variables into configuration. For the options themselves, use the two pages it links to:

The configuration reference lists every option with its environment variable, CLI flag, and default.
Running in Docker has runnable docker run and Compose examples for each container run mode.

The EZBAK_ prefix¶

Every configuration field maps to an environment variable. Write the field name in uppercase and add the EZBAK_ prefix.

export EZBAK_NAME="my-backup"
export EZBAK_SOURCE_PATHS="/data"
export EZBAK_STORAGE_PATHS="/backups"
export EZBAK_SQLITE_PATHS="/data/app.db"
export EZBAK_KEEP_DAILY=7

The source_paths field is therefore EZBAK_SOURCE_PATHS, and keep_daily is EZBAK_KEEP_DAILY. A field that takes a list of paths reads a comma-separated string, so EZBAK_SQLITE_PATHS="/data/app.db,/data/sessions.db" names two databases. An entry in EZBAK_SQLITE_PATHS can also be a glob pattern, such as EZBAK_SQLITE_PATHS=/data/shards/*.db. See Match databases with a pattern.

A few options control the container entrypoint and have no library field and no CLI flag, such as EZBAK_ACTION and EZBAK_CRON. The configuration reference marks them as container-only.

.env and .env.secrets files¶

The container also reads a .env file and a .env.secrets file from its working directory, so you can keep secrets out of the process environment. A value in the process environment wins over the same key in a file.

Running the container locally reads your .env files

Keep .env and .env.secrets out of any directory you mount into a test container. The container reads both files, so running the image on a development machine can load real S3 credentials.

TZ and EZBAK_TZ¶

ezbak stamps each backup with a timestamp. The timezone comes from one of two places:

TZ sets the system timezone of the container. ezbak uses it when no explicit timezone is configured. This is the usual way to set the timezone in a container. The image ships with TZ=Etc/UTC, so an unconfigured container stamps timestamps in UTC.
EZBAK_TZ sets the tz field of ezbak directly and overrides the system timezone.

Set one of the two so the timestamps match your expectations. For the timestamp format, see Backup names.