`libreportal app export <app>` writes one app to a single file;
`libreportal app import <file>` installs it here. This is the thing the
original request described as "upload or navigate to the backup file" — a
restic repository is not a file, but the want behind the phrasing is real.
The format is deliberately boring: gzipped tar of the app directory with
its .libreportal-manifest.json at the root. That manifest already records
size, images, volumes, databases and storage location, so import reuses
the phase-3 checks for free — refusing an app this version no longer
ships, or one that will not fit, before unpacking anything.
Export stops the app first. A tar of a running Postgres is a corrupt
Postgres, and a file that looks fine until you restore it is worse than a
refusal. tar runs as the owning user with --numeric-owner so container
sub-UIDs survive the round trip instead of being remapped through this
machine's /etc/passwd.
Import re-runs the normal install pipeline after unpacking, because the
compose still carries the SOURCE machine's ports, IPs and domains — that
pipeline is what re-allocates them here, and migrateUrlRewrite fixes the
host-bound CFG_* fields.
Documented throughout as a courier format, not a backup: no history, no
retention, no encryption. Importing under a different name is refused
outright rather than half-working — the CFG_<APP>_* namespace and compose
identities would all need rewriting, and `instance create` already
answers "a second copy".
Fixes a bug this surfaced: _appDirIntended did an indirect expansion on
CFG_<SLUG>_STORAGE without checking <SLUG> can be a variable name, so a
hyphenated or mistyped app name emitted "invalid variable name" and then
reported the misleading "storage location is not mounted" for an app that
simply did not exist.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`restore preflight <loc_idx> <host>` reads every app's manifest out of its
own snapshot (engineDumpFile pulls a single file without restoring) and
checks it against this machine before anything is written:
* an app this version no longer ships is skipped — restoring one
produces a directory that can never start, and looks like success
until someone opens it
* an app that will not fit is skipped individually, because filling the
disk part-way through takes the apps that already landed with it
* a manifest naming a storage location this machine lacks falls back to
the default, and says which app moved where
The installer's restore path runs it and asks once before continuing.
Two bugs found by running it against the live repository rather than
reading it:
The CLI dispatcher calls handlers with NO arguments, so `shift 4; "$@"`
inside one operates on an empty list. `restore first-run bulk` has always
had this — a bulk restore silently received zero apps. Fixed at the entry
point: start.sh now captures LP_CLI_ARGS from "$@", and both call sites
use it.
And the wrapper fills unset argv slots with the literal string "empty"
(${5:-empty} … ${9:-empty}), so a trailing slot arrives as a five-
character app name rather than a blank. Filtering on -n alone let five
phantom apps through and reported each as "no longer shipped". Both call
sites now drop the sentinel. That also caps any explicit list at five, so
preflight discovers the host's apps itself when given none.
Verified against the live repository: 13 apps discovered and checked.
Sizes read "?" there because those snapshots predate manifests carrying
size_bytes — the intended graceful fallback, not a refusal.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Phases 3 and 4 were written when the restore was going to be a WebUI
wizard branch. It runs in the installer now, so both change shape.
Reconciliation stops being a screen and becomes a preflight report. The
key realisation is that it can run BEFORE anything is written: every
app's snapshot carries its own .libreportal-manifest.json, and
engineDumpFile already pulls a single file out of a snapshot without
restoring it. So the installer can read all the manifests, compare them
to this machine, and print a verdict per app — skipping an app whose
template this version no longer ships, or whose data will not fit, rather
than restoring something unstartable.
Phase 4 is now the thing the original request actually described. 'Upload
or navigate to the backup file' does not match a restic repository, but
the want behind it is real: one file, one app, hand it around.
'libreportal app export/import' with a .lpapp (tar.gz of the app dir plus
its manifest) serves it directly, gets §3's reconciliation for free, and
gives the installer a third answer to 'where is your backup?'. Documented
as a courier format, explicitly not a backup.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Phase 1 is built. Phase 2 hit a blocker worth deciding rather than
silently working around.
The WebUI cannot run restic, so a password typed in the browser has to
reach the host. Both existing channels leak it. The task command string —
which is what the Backup page ALREADY uses for this exact field — lands in
a task JSON under frontend/data/tasks at 0644, world-readable, and shows
in ps while the task runs. A file in that directory does not work either:
the container writes as dockerinstall, the manager runs as libreportal,
and at 0640 the manager cannot read it (verified on the live box).
So this is an existing product-wide weakness that the restore branch
happens to surface, not one the feature would introduce — and the restore
case is its sharpest form, since that password is the key to every backup
the user has.
Recommends a one-shot secret drop: the ownership helper already solves the
mirror-image case (_webui_bind_access chowns MANAGER:cowner 0640 so the
container can read manager-owned files), so the reverse is a small,
well-scoped addition — a directory owned cowner:MANAGER 0730 that the
container drops a 0640 file into, which the manager reads once and
unlinks. Worth doing because it also fixes the Backup page.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Proposal for making "I'm rebuilding my server" a first-class first-run
path. Recording it before building because the useful finding is how
little is actually missing.
The restore machinery is already there: locationAdd connects a repo,
restoreFirstRunDiscover reads it without touching live state,
migrateDiscoverHosts/Apps enumerate what is in it, backupRestoreSystemConfig
brings settings and credentials back, restoreFirstRunBulk restores many
apps from another host, migrateUrlRewrite fixes host-bound CFG_* fields,
and storageRestoreAppTo already handles a snapshot whose paths don't
match this machine. What is missing is the front door and one screen.
That screen is the reconciliation diff — a backup describes a machine
that no longer exists, and the failure mode worth designing against is
re-deciding those facts silently. Every difference is detectable before
anything is written: a storage location that doesn't exist here, an app
bigger than the target drive, domains pointing at the old host, ports
already taken, apps this version no longer ships.
Two things the doc is deliberately blunt about.
An encrypted repository cannot be opened with anything inside itself. The
location password lives in the system config, which is inside the backup,
so on a fresh machine the user must supply it by hand — that is what
encryption means, not a bug. It has to be asked for early, because a user
who never wrote it down does not have a backup and should learn that at
step 2 rather than step 5.
And "upload the backup file" doesn't match the engines: restic, borg and
kopia write to a repository, not a file. Local means navigating to a path;
remote means credentials. A genuine single-file import is a separate
feature (a portable per-app export built on the manifest) and shouldn't
be conflated with the backup engines.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
