# Get a Database Backup

Use the REST API to get a backup of your YouTrack database.

> **Note:**
> Please note that any reading operation with a backup requires Low-level Admin Read permission. If you need to create a new backup file, you will need a user account that is granted Low-level Admin Write permission.

## Summary

To get a backup of the YouTrack database:

1. Get a list of available backups.

2. If required, create a new backup.

3. Get the URL of the new backup.

## Step-by-Step

### Get a List of Available Backups

To get a list of available backups, send a [GET request to the
database backups endpoint](resource-api-admin-databaseBackup-backups.html#get_all-BackupFile-method):

```
/api/admin/databaseBackup/backups
```

In response, you will get a JSON object containing one or more database backups.

> **Tip:**
> In YouTrack Cloud, you can only have one backup file stored on your instance. This fact makes the task of getting the fresh backup a bit easier: you do not need to get the list of backups as you always have a single one. You can start with creating the fresh backup, and then get its attributes and downloading link.

Use the following syntax for the request:

```
GET /api/admin/databaseBackup/backups{?fields=<fields>}
```

Pay attention to the `fields` request parameter. It should contain a list of database backup entity attributes, that YouTrack must return in response to your request. If you do not specify any field here, you will get only the entity ID and \$type of each found database backup. Read more about [fields
syntax in YouTrack REST API](api-fields-syntax.html).

#### Sample Request

```CURL
curl -X GET \
'https://example.youtrack.cloud/api/admin/databaseBackup/backups?fields=creationDate,file,error,link,name,size,id' \
-H 'Accept: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer <YouTrack_token>'
```

#### Sample Response Body

```JSON
[
    {
        "name": "2020-09-05-22-27-16.tar.gz",
        "size": 9291043,
        "creationDate": 1536175642000,
        "link": "backupFile/2020-09-05-22-27-16.tar.gz",
        "file": "/mnt/disk0/example/backup/2020-09-05-22-27-16.tar.gz",
        "error": null,
        "id": "2020-09-05-22-27-16.tar.gz"
    }
]
```

### Create a Fresh Backup

If you wish to create a fresh backup, send a POST request to the following endpoint:

```
/api/admin/databaseBackup/settings
```

As the payload, send a JSON object `backupStatus` instructing the server to initiate the backup.

For instance, the following sample request initiates a new backup:

```CURL
curl -X POST \
  'https://example.youtrack.cloud/api/admin/databaseBackup/settings?fields=archiveFormat,availableDiskSpace,backupStatus(backupCancelled,backupError(date,errorMessage),backupInProgress,stopBackup)' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <YouTrack_token>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
  "backupStatus": {
    "backupInProgress": true,
    "stopBackup": false
  }
}'
```

Pay attention to the headers in the request, and you can also provide a list of attributes in the `fields` request parameter to specify the attributes that will help you monitor the backup in the response that the server will return.

To the sample request above, server would return the following data:

```JSON
{
    "archiveFormat": "TAR_GZ",
    "backupStatus": {
        "backupInProgress": true,
        "stopBackup": false,
        "backupError": null,
        "backupCancelled": false
    },
    "availableDiskSpace": 163739054080
}
```

### Get the Link to the Backup

After you created a fresh backup, you can send another GET request to read an updated list of the backups.

The most important here is to specify the following attributes in the `fields` request parameter: `creationDate,link,id`.

For example, we send the following GET request:

```CURL
curl -X GET \
'https://example.com/youtrack/api/admin/databaseBackup/backups?fields=creationDate,link,id' \
-H 'Accept: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer <YouTrack_token>'
```

In response to such request, the server returns the follwing group of JSON objects, sorted by the creation timestamp in descending order.

```JSON
[
    {
        "creationDate": 1558523648000,
        "link": "backupFile/2020-05-22-13-14-07.tar.gz",
        "id": "2020-05-22-13-14-07.tar.gz",
        "$type": "BackupFile"
    },
    {
        "creationDate": 1558422000000,
        "link": "backupFile/2020-05-21-09-00-00.tar.gz",
        "id": "2020-05-21-09-00-00.tar.gz",
        "$type": "BackupFile"
    },
    {
        "creationDate": 1558335600000,
        "link": "backupFile/2020-05-20-09-00-00.tar.gz",
        "id": "2020-05-20-09-00-00.tar.gz",
        "$type": "BackupFile"
    }
]
```

So, to download the fresh backup, we how need to take the `link` for the first returned backup entity: `"link": "backupFile/2020-05-22-13-14-07.tar.gz"`.

To compose the complete download URL, you need to add the link to the baseURL of your youtrack service. In our example, the `baseURL` for the service would be `https://example.com/youtrack/`. Hence, the complete download URL for the newest database backup file would be:

```
https://example.com/youtrack/backupFile/2020-05-22-13-14-07.tar.gz
```