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Backup and Restore Zabbix

warning

This documentation is currently a WIP.

This backup and restore doc is currently for me running Zabbix Server in docker.

Backup​

# create backup directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir backup

1. Freeze your current image digests​

out=backup/zabbix-compose-with-digests-$(date +'%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').yml && \
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml config --resolve-image-digests > "$out" && \
echo "Exported to $out"

2. Save each image to tarballs​

Next, export all of the images your stack is using. For each service, run:

replace backup/bk_filename.yml to the actual backup filename.

bk_config=backup/bk_filename.yml
IMAGE=$(grep image $bk_config \
        | grep zabbix-server-mysql \
        | awk '{print $2}')
docker pull $IMAGE
docker save $IMAGE -o backup/images/$(basename $IMAGE | tr /:@ _).tar

IMAGE=$(grep image $bk_config \
        | grep zabbix-web-service \
        | awk '{print $2}')
docker pull $IMAGE
docker save $IMAGE -o backup/images/$(basename $IMAGE | tr /:@ _).tar

IMAGE=$(grep image $bk_config \
        | grep zabbix-web-nginx-mysql \
        | awk '{print $2}')
docker pull $IMAGE
docker save $IMAGE -o backup/images/$(basename $IMAGE | tr /:@ _).tar

IMAGE=$(grep image $bk_config \
        | grep zabbix-agent \
        | awk '{print $2}')
docker pull $IMAGE
docker save $IMAGE -o backup/images/$(basename $IMAGE | tr /:@ _).tar

IMAGE=$(grep -E '^\s*image:\s*(.+/)?mysql(:|@|$)' "$bk_config" \
    | awk '{ print $2 }')
docker pull $IMAGE
docker save $IMAGE -o backup/images/$(basename $IMAGE | tr /:@ _).tar

Storing all of these .tar files means you can later docker load them and be certain you’ve got the exact same binaries.

3. Dump your database (or snapshot the volume)​

Option A: Logical dump via mysqldump​

A clean way to capture the Zabbix schema and data:

mkdir -p backup/db
docker exec zabbix-db \
  sh -c 'exec mysqldump -u"$MYSQL_USER" -p"$MYSQL_PASSWORD" \
         --routines --events --all-databases' \
  > backup/db/all-databases.sql

Option B: Volume snapshot​

If you prefer a block-level copy of the MySQL datadir:

mkdir -p backup/volumes
docker run --rm \
  -v zbx_db_data:/volume \
  -v "$(pwd)/backup/volumes":/backup \
  busybox \
  tar czf /backup/zbx_db_data_$(date +%F_%H%M).tar.gz -C /volume .

Either method works—dumps are easier to migrate across MySQL versions; snapshots restore fastest in an all-Docker rollback.

Restore from backup​

1. Load images​

2. Recreate volumes​

  • If you did a volume snapshot:

    docker volume create zbx_db_data
    tar xzf backup/volumes/zbx_db_data_YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM.tar.gz \
    -C /var/lib/docker/volumes/zbx_db_data/_data

  • If you did a dump: start the zabbix-db container and then:

    docker exec -i zabbix-db \
    mysql -u"$MYSQL_USER" -p"$MYSQL_PASSWORD" < backup/db/all-databases.sql

3. Deploy​

docker-compose -f backup/change-me.yml up -d

Automating & scheduling​

TBD