Backup & Recovery

Open Source

Deploy Kopia Backup Server on a VPS

Fast, encrypted, deduplicated backups with flexible storage backends — snapshot policies, systemd automation, web UI, and S3-compatible object storage support.

At a Glance

Project	Kopia
License	Apache 2.0
Recommended Plan	RamNode Cloud VPS 1 GB+ (2 GB+ for large repos)
OS	Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04 LTS
Storage	Local filesystem or S3-compatible
Estimated Setup Time	30–45 minutes

Prerequisites

A RamNode VPS with at least 1 GB RAM
Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 LTS with root or sudo access
(Optional) S3-compatible storage bucket for off-site backups
A strong repository password — no recovery if lost

Install Kopia

Add APT repository

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y curl gnupg2

curl -s https://kopia.io/signing-key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/kopia-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/kopia-keyring.gpg] http://packages.kopia.io/apt/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kopia.list

Install

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y kopia
kopia --version

Create a Backup Repository

Option A: Local filesystem

sudo mkdir -p /opt/kopia-repo
kopia repository create filesystem --path /opt/kopia-repo --password "YOUR_STRONG_PASSWORD"

Option B: S3-compatible storage

kopia repository create s3 \
  --bucket your-bucket-name \
  --prefix kopia/ \
  --access-key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY \
  --secret-access-key YOUR_SECRET_KEY \
  --region us-east-1 \
  --password "YOUR_STRONG_PASSWORD"

Verify

kopia repository status

Configure Snapshot Policies

Set compression and retention

kopia policy set --global --compression=zstd

kopia policy set --global \
  --keep-latest 10 \
  --keep-hourly 0 \
  --keep-daily 7 \
  --keep-weekly 4 \
  --keep-monthly 6 \
  --keep-annual 0

Set exclusions

kopia policy set --global \
  --add-ignore ".cache" \
  --add-ignore "node_modules" \
  --add-ignore ".npm" \
  --add-ignore "*.tmp" \
  --add-ignore "*.log"

Verify policies

kopia policy show --global

Create Your First Snapshots

Snapshot critical directories

kopia snapshot create /etc
kopia snapshot create /var/www
kopia snapshot create /home
kopia snapshot create /opt/myapp/data

Estimate and list

kopia snapshot estimate /var/www
kopia snapshot list --all

Automate Backups with systemd

Create backup script

sudo tee /usr/local/bin/kopia-backup.sh > /dev/null << 'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
export KOPIA_PASSWORD="YOUR_STRONG_PASSWORD"

DIRS="/etc /var/www /home"
for dir in $DIRS; do
  if [ -d "$dir" ]; then
    kopia snapshot create "$dir"
  fi
done

kopia maintenance run --full
EOF

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/kopia-backup.sh

Create systemd service

# /etc/systemd/system/kopia-backup.service
[Unit]
Description=Kopia Backup Job
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/kopia-backup.sh
User=root
Nice=10
IOSchedulingClass=idle

Create systemd timer

# /etc/systemd/system/kopia-backup.timer
[Unit]
Description=Run Kopia Backup Daily at 3:00 AM

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 03:00:00
Persistent=true
RandomizedDelaySec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Enable and test

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now kopia-backup.timer
systemctl list-timers kopia-backup.timer

# Test manually
sudo systemctl start kopia-backup.service
sudo journalctl -u kopia-backup.service --no-pager -l

Restore Data

Restore full snapshot

kopia snapshot list /var/www
kopia restore <SNAPSHOT_ID> /tmp/restore-test/

Mount and restore single file

mkdir -p /mnt/kopia-mount
kopia mount <SNAPSHOT_ID> /mnt/kopia-mount &

cp /mnt/kopia-mount/path/to/file /destination/
umount /mnt/kopia-mount

Compare snapshots

kopia diff <SNAPSHOT_ID_1> <SNAPSHOT_ID_2>

Enable the Web UI (Optional)

Create Kopia server service

# /etc/systemd/system/kopia-server.service
[Unit]
Description=Kopia Repository Server
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
Environment=KOPIA_PASSWORD=YOUR_STRONG_PASSWORD
ExecStart=/usr/bin/kopia server start \
  --address=127.0.0.1:51515 --insecure
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and access via SSH tunnel

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now kopia-server.service

# From local machine:
ssh -L 51515:127.0.0.1:51515 user@your-vps-ip
# Then open http://localhost:51515

Repository Maintenance

Maintenance and integrity checks

kopia maintenance run --full
kopia repository validate-provider
kopia snapshot verify --verify-files-percent=5
kopia snapshot list --all

Quick Reference

Task	Command
Check repo status	`kopia repository status`
Create snapshot	`kopia snapshot create /path`
List snapshots	`kopia snapshot list --all`
Restore	`kopia restore ID /target/`
Show policy	`kopia policy show --global`
Full maintenance	`kopia maintenance run --full`

Performance Tuning

Low-memory VPS: kopia policy set --global --upload-parallel=2
Limit cache: kopia cache set --content-cache-size-mb=500 --metadata-cache-size-mb=500
Schedule off-peak: Adjust systemd timer for low-traffic periods

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