Laravel Backup Station

Automatic database backups for Laravel — schedule, retention rules, monthly snapshots, rename, download, and a beautiful dashboard. Built in the same style as laravel-logman.

Features

• 📅 Scheduled backups — hourly / daily / weekly / monthly / custom cron, no scheduler boilerplate
• 🗂️ Max copies retention — hard cap on the number of backup files
• 🗓️ Monthly keep rule — keep one backup from a chosen day-of-month for N months
• ⏳ Age-based pruning — delete backups older than X days
• 📌 Mark important backups so retention never deletes them
• ↺ Restore any successful backup back into its database with one click
• ⚠ Missing-file detection — entries whose file no longer exists on the disk are flagged in the dashboard
• 🐬 Multi-driver — MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite
• 🗜️ ZIP / Gzip / Plain — backups default to .sql.zip (opens with any tool); switch to .sql.gz or plain .sql via BACKUP_STATION_ARCHIVE
• ⬇️ Download any backup with one click
• ✏️ Rename backups in place (extension preserved)
• 🔍 Search & filter by filename, database, status
• 🌑 Dark mode with persistent preference
• 🔒 Password protection + authorize callback for the dashboard
• 📒 JSON metadata stored in backups.json next to the SQL files
• 🛠️ Artisan commands for manual run / cleanup / install
• 🔁 Multi-connection support — back up several DB connections in one run
• 🏢 Multi-tenant ready — a BackupConnectionProvider supplies dynamic connections (e.g. one database per tenant) at runtime
• 🎯 Automatic-backup scope — exclude databases from scheduled runs, or restrict them to a single database; managed from the dashboard or from config
• 🗄️ Databases page — live size, tables count, reachability and last successful backup per database, with search / sort / filters and per-row "Backup now"
• 🎛️ Run-target selector — back up everything, or pick one database in the Run dialog (with a searchable dropdown when there are many)
• 📣 Notifications — Mail / Slack / Telegram / Discord / Log, with per-event routing
• 🚀 Async by default — Mail, Telegram, Discord deliver via the queue (afterResponse) so the dashboard never blocks

Installation

composer require mahmoud-mhamed/laravel-backup-station
php artisan backup-station:install

Open /backup-station in your browser.

Configuration

Edit config/backup-station.php:

'schedule' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'frequency' => 'daily',          // hourly|daily|twiceDaily|monthly|cron
    'time' => '02:00',
    'days' => ['*'],                 // every day; or ['monday','wednesday','friday'], or [1,3,5]
    'day_of_month' => 1,             // used by frequency=monthly
    'cron' => '0 2 * * *',
],

'storage' => [
    'disk' => env('BACKUP_STATION_DISK'),     // null = filesystems.default; or 's3', 'minio', 'spaces'…
    'path' => env('BACKUP_STATION_PATH', 'backup-station'),
],

'notifications' => [
    'on_success' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['log']],
    'on_failure' => ['enabled' => true, 'channels' => ['log', 'mail']],

    'channels' => [
        'mail' => [
            // Either a literal array or a comma-separated env value.
            'to' => ['admin@example.com', 'devops@example.com'],
            // or: 'to' => env('BACKUP_STATION_MAIL_TO'),
            'from' => env('BACKUP_STATION_MAIL_FROM', env('MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS')),
            'mailer' => env('BACKUP_STATION_MAILER', env('MAIL_MAILER')),
            'queue' => true,    // async by default
        ],
        'slack' => [
            'webhook' => env('BACKUP_STATION_SLACK_WEBHOOK', env('LOG_SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL')),
            'queue' => false,   // webhook is fast; sync is fine
        ],
        'telegram' => [
            'bot_token' => env('BACKUP_STATION_TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN'),
            'chat_id' => env('BACKUP_STATION_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID'),
            'queue' => true,    // async by default
        ],
        'discord' => [
            'webhook' => env('BACKUP_STATION_DISCORD_WEBHOOK'),
            'queue' => true,    // async by default
        ],
    ],
],

'retention' => [
    'max_backups' => 30,         // hard cap (0 = unlimited)
    'keep_for_days' => 14,       // delete older than (0 = forever)
    'monthly_keep' => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'day' => 1,              // keep the 1st of each month
        'keep_months' => 12,     // for 12 months
    ],
],

The package auto-registers its scheduler — just make sure Laravel's schedule:run is wired up (Laravel 11+ does this for you).

Multi-Tenant / Dynamic Connections

When the set of databases is not known at config time (e.g. one database per tenant), implement the provider contract and register it:

// config/backup-station.php
'connections_provider' => \App\Services\MyBackupConnectionProvider::class,

use MahmoudMhamed\BackupStation\Contracts\BackupConnectionProvider;

class MyBackupConnectionProvider implements BackupConnectionProvider
{
    /** Connection names a full run should cover. */
    public function connections(): array
    {
        return ['mysql', ...Tenant::all()->map(fn ($t) => $t->database()->getName())];
    }

    /** DB config for names Laravel doesn't know (same shape as database.connections.*). */
    public function configFor(string $name): ?array
    {
        return Tenant::findByDatabase($name)?->database()->connection();
    }

    /** Human labels shown in the dashboard (dropdowns, Databases page). */
    public function labels(): array
    {
        return ['mysql' => 'Central', /* db name => tenant name, … */];
    }
}

Provider-resolved configs are registered into database.connections at runtime, so dumps, restores, table listings and size queries all work on them transparently. On a full run, one broken database (e.g. a stale tenant) is recorded as a failed entry and the run continues with the rest.

Custom route registration

Multi-tenant apps often need the dashboard registered per domain group (central domains vs tenant domains) with different middleware. Disable auto-registration and load the routes file yourself:

// config/backup-station.php
'viewer' => ['register_routes' => false, /* … */],

// e.g. bootstrap/app.php
Route::middleware($centralMiddleware)->domain($domain)
    ->group(base_path('vendor/mahmoud-mhamed/laravel-backup-station/routes/web.php'));
Route::middleware($tenantMiddleware)
    ->group(base_path('vendor/mahmoud-mhamed/laravel-backup-station/routes/web.php'));

The backup-station middleware group and throttle alias are still registered by the package; viewer.middleware applies inside every registration.

Automatic Backup Scope

Scheduled runs can skip databases, or be restricted to specific ones. Manual runs always ignore this scope — an explicit target or a manual "All databases" run covers everything.

// config/backup-station.php
'scope' => [
    // 'ui'     — manage from the dashboard Databases page (stored in
    //            settings.json on the storage disk). Default.
    // 'config' — the arrays below are authoritative; dashboard toggles
    //            are disabled.
    'source' => env('BACKUP_STATION_SCOPE_SOURCE', 'ui'),

    'only' => [],      // when non-empty, scheduled runs cover ONLY these
    'exclude' => [],   // otherwise these are skipped on scheduled runs
],

In ui mode the Databases page shows per-row Exclude / Include and Only this buttons plus a Will back up / Skipped badge for each database.

Artisan Commands

php artisan backup-station:run                 # back up now
php artisan backup-station:run --connection=mysql --note="Pre-deploy"
php artisan backup-station:cleanup             # apply retention policy now
php artisan backup-station:install             # publish config
php artisan backup-station:install --force     # overwrite existing config

Use --force when re-running install after a package upgrade if you want the published config/backup-station.php overwritten with the latest defaults. Without --force, your existing file is preserved.

Programmatic API

use MahmoudMhamed\BackupStation\Facades\BackupStation;

BackupStation::runBackup();                 // manual run — covers every connection
BackupStation::runBackup(scheduled: true);  // respects the automatic-backup scope
BackupStation::runBackup('mysql');          // one explicit connection
BackupStation::applyRetentionPolicy();      // returns deleted IDs
BackupStation::stats();                     // dashboard stats
BackupStation::allBackupConnections();      // every configured connection
BackupStation::backupConnections();         // connections a scheduled run covers
BackupStation::databasesSizeSummary();      // combined live size of all databases

Loading Indicator

Long-running operations (creating a backup, importing a backup file, running retention cleanup) display a full-screen spinner overlay while the request is in flight, so the user can see the action is in progress and won't double-submit.

Dashboard

The dashboard at /backup-station shows:

• Stat cards that mirror the active filters: totals, success rate with average duration, sizes (total + average per backup), combined live size of every configured database, and the latest backup with the first-success date and coverage span
• Full list with Download, Rename, Pin, Delete actions
• "Run Backup Now" with a target selector — all databases or a single one (searchable dropdown, per-table structure/data picker)
• Search, date range, status and database filters, per-page control
• Databases page — one row per configured database with live size, tables count, reachability, last successful backup, auto-backup scope toggles and a Backup now shortcut (/backup-station?run=<connection> deep-links into the Run dialog preselected)
• Config viewer page
• About page with the full feature list

Security

// config/backup-station.php
'viewer' => [
    'password' => env('BACKUP_STATION_PASSWORD'),
    'middleware' => ['web', 'auth'],
    'authorize' => fn ($req) => $req->user()?->isAdmin(),
],

When authorize is null, the dashboard is only reachable in local env.

Backups contain raw SQL. When the active storage disk is publicly served (the public disk, or any local disk rooted inside a web folder), the dashboard shows a prominent warning banner on every page — set BACKUP_STATION_DISK to a private disk (e.g. local, s3) to clear it.

License

MIT