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Backup and restore are available to platform superusers on self-hosted deployments. Cloud-hosted accounts are backed up automatically by CertForge — contact support to request a restore.
CertForge stores all data in PostgreSQL. The backup tool produces a full compressed database dump that includes organizations, users, certificates, audit log, billing history, CA material, and all settings.

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Scheduled backups

The easiest way to protect your data is to let CertForge back itself up automatically.
  1. Log in as a superuser and go to Admin → System Health.
  2. Scroll to Backup Schedule.
  3. Check Enable scheduled backups.
  4. Choose a schedule — Hourly, Daily, or Weekly.
  5. Set Keep last N backups (default: 7). Older files are pruned automatically after each backup.
  6. Optionally set a custom Backup directory (defaults to {data_path}/backups/).
  7. Click Save Schedule.
CertForge checks every hour whether a backup is due and runs one automatically when the interval has elapsed.

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On-demand backups

Two options are available under Admin → System Health → Database:

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Backup history

Every backup — scheduled or manual, success or failure — is recorded in the Audit Log with the timestamp, actor, file name, and size. Restore events are also logged. To view backup history: go to Admin → Audit Log and search for backup.

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Saved backups

Admin → System Health → Saved Backups lists all backup files currently on disk. For each file you can:
  • Download — save the file to your local machine
  • Restore — restore the database from this file (requires typing RESTORE to confirm)
  • Delete — remove the file from disk (the audit log entry is retained)

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Restore

Restoring overwrites all current data. Schedule a maintenance window and inform your users before proceeding.

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From a saved backup

  1. Go to Admin → System Health → Saved Backups.
  2. Click ↺ Restore next to the file you want.
  3. Type RESTORE in the confirmation field and click the button.
  4. Restart the service when prompted — this reloads in-memory state from the restored database.

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From an uploaded file

Use this to restore from a backup file you downloaded previously, or from a backup taken on a different server.
  1. Go to Admin → System Health → Restore from Upload.
  2. Select the .sql.gz backup file from your local machine.
  3. Type RESTORE in the confirmation field and submit.
  4. Restart the service after completion.

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After a restore

After any restore, restart the CertForge service. This is required to clear cached state — settings, trust context, and active sessions are held in memory and will reflect the pre-restore state until the process restarts. Users will be signed out and will need to log in again after the restart.

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Backup file format

Backup files are named certforge-YYYY-MM-DDTHHMMSSZ.sql.gz — plain SQL, gzip compressed. They include DROP TABLE IF EXISTS statements so they can be restored cleanly without manual cleanup. You can inspect any backup without restoring it: