shell/immich

Immich Management Scripts

This directory contains scripts for managing and backing up Immich photo management system.

Scripts

backup-immich.sh

Complete backup script for Immich installation that creates backups of:

• PostgreSQL database (using pg_dumpall as recommended by Immich)
• User upload directories (photos, videos, and metadata)

Requirements:

• .env file in the parent directory (/home/acedanger/shell/.env) with:
  • DB_USERNAME - PostgreSQL username
  • DB_DATABASE_NAME - Database name
  • UPLOAD_LOCATION - Path to Immich upload directory
• Docker containers: immich_postgres and immich_server

Usage:

./backup-immich.sh

Backup Location:

• Database: ../immich_backups/immich_db_backup_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.sql.gz
• Uploads: ../immich_backups/immich_uploads_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.tar.gz

Features:

• Automatic container pausing/resuming during backup
• Comprehensive error handling and cleanup
• Backup validation and health checks
• Automatic compression
• Old backup cleanup (configurable)
• Centralized logging to /home/acedanger/shell/logs/
• Detailed progress reporting and timestamped logs
• 🔔 Webhook notifications to notify.peterwood.rocks/lab
• ☁️ Backblaze B2 integration for off-site backup storage
• 📊 File size reporting in notifications

Configuration

The scripts expect a .env file in the parent directory with the following variables:

# Database configuration
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/path/to/immich/uploads

# Notification settings
WEBHOOK_URL="https://notify.peterwood.rocks/lab"

# Backblaze B2 settings (optional)
# Get these from your B2 account: https://secure.backblaze.com/app_keys.htm
# B2_APPLICATION_KEY_ID=your_key_id_here
# B2_APPLICATION_KEY=your_application_key_here
# B2_BUCKET_NAME=your_bucket_name_here

# Optional: Backup retention (days)
BACKUP_RETENTION_DAYS=30

Backup Strategy

Based on Immich's official backup recommendations:

1. Database Backup: Uses pg_dumpall with --clean and --if-exists flags
2. Upload Directory: Complete archive of upload location including:
   • upload/ - Original photos and videos
   • profile/ - User profile images
   • thumbs/ - Generated thumbnails
   • encoded-video/ - Transcoded videos
   • library/ - Library metadata
   • backups/ - Existing backup files (excluded from new backups)

Notifications 🔔

The backup script sends notifications to your webhook URL with:

• 🚀 Start notification: When backup begins
• ✅ Success notification: When backup completes successfully with file sizes
• ⚠️ Warning notification: When backup succeeds but B2 upload fails
• 🚨 Error notification: When backup fails

Example notification:

📦 Database: immich_db_backup_20250526_215913.sql.gz (150MB)
📁 Uploads: immich_uploads_20250526_215913.tar.gz (25GB)
☁️ Successfully uploaded to B2 bucket: my-immich-backups

Backblaze B2 Integration ☁️

Setup B2 Account

1. Create a Backblaze B2 account
2. Create a new bucket for Immich backups
3. Generate application keys:
   • Go to: https://secure.backblaze.com/app_keys.htm
   • Create new key with read/write access to your bucket

Configure B2 in .env

Add these variables to your .env file:

B2_APPLICATION_KEY_ID=your_key_id_here
B2_APPLICATION_KEY=your_application_key_here
B2_BUCKET_NAME=your_bucket_name_here

B2 Features

• Automatic upload: Backup files are uploaded to B2 after creation
• Organized storage: Files stored in immich-backups/ folder in your bucket
• Error handling: Script continues if B2 upload fails (local backup preserved)
• Progress tracking: Upload status included in notifications

The B2 CLI tool (b2-linux) is included in this directory and doesn't require separate installation.

Restore Process

For complete restore instructions, see: https://immich.app/docs/administration/backup-and-restore/

1. Database Restore:

   docker exec -i immich_postgres psql -U postgres < immich_db_backup.sql
   

2. Upload Directory Restore:

   tar -xzf immich_uploads_backup.tar.gz -C /target/location
   

Logs

Backup logs and performance metrics are stored in the main shell logs directory (/home/acedanger/shell/logs/).

Monitoring

The backup script includes:

• Progress indicators for long-running operations
• Size validation for backup files
• Container status monitoring
• Automatic cleanup procedures
• Comprehensive error reporting

Automation

To automate backups, add to crontab:

# Daily Immich backup at 2:00 AM
0 2 * * * /home/acedanger/shell/immich/backup-immich.sh >> /home/acedanger/shell/logs/immich-backup.log 2>&1