Backups and restoring your world

Your server backs up its world once a day on its own, and you can take extra copies whenever you want. This article covers how often that happens, how much history your plan keeps, and what a restore actually does to a live server.

Backups live in Rebetchi Manage at manage.rebetchi.com. Open your server and select Backups in the sidebar.

1. What a backup is

A backup is a copy of your server's save data, stored off the machine your server runs on. It does not use your server's disk space.

Before every archive, Rebetchi tells the game to write the world to disk first. If your server is running and that save does not succeed, the backup fails rather than storing a half-written world. A backup taken while the server is stopped skips that step, because there is nothing in memory to flush.

2. Automatic backups

• One automatic backup runs every day. It is set up when your server is created, so there is nothing to switch on.
• Automatic backups never use one of your manual slots.
• How much history you keep depends on your plan: Rebetchi Core keeps 7 days, Rebetchi Plus 14 days, Rebetchi Ultra 30 days. Automatic backups older than that window are removed.
• The time of day the automatic backup runs is set when your server is created. There is no control for changing it in the panel yet.

There is a second way to get an automatic restore point. On the Automated Tasks page, a scheduled restart has a Take a backup before restarting switch. Backups taken that way are system backups and do not use a manual slot.

3. Manual backups

Take one before you do anything you might want to undo — a big settings change, a build project, a world event.

1. Open your server, then Backups.
2. Select Create backup.

The world is saved first, then the archive uploads. The row moves from Queued to Running to Complete on its own.

The limits, and what they mean in practice:

• Manual slots by plan: Core 5, Plus 10, Ultra 20. The count next to the button reads, for example, "2 / 5 manual slots used".
• When every slot is full, the panel refuses the new backup and asks you to delete one first. It never deletes one of your manual backups for you.
• One archive at a time per server, and at most one manual backup every 10 minutes. If you ask too soon, the message tells you how long to wait.
• Manual backups are not removed by your plan's retention window. They stay until you delete them.

Deleting a manual backup frees its slot and does not touch your live world.

Backups the system takes for you — before an update, a restart, a restore or a wipe — are marked Quota-exempt and never use a slot.

4. Reading the list

Each row shows when the backup was taken, what triggered it (Manual, Scheduled, Before restart, and so on), its size, and its status. A row that says Failed shows the reason when you hover it.

The Changes column says what changed since the previous backup, so you can tell two archives apart — for example 3 settings changed (ExpRate, DeathPenalty, +1), Server updated, or No changes since the previous backup. It records which settings changed, never what they were changed to. Archives taken before this was added read Not recorded.

You can also add your own label of up to 60 characters using the pencil icon. Your label appears above the automatic note and never replaces it.

5. Restoring a backup

Restoring replaces the world that is live right now. Everything that happened after that backup was taken is lost.

1. On the Backups page, find a row whose status is Complete and select Restore.
2. Type your server name to confirm. Either the hostname players connect to or the server name shown in game is accepted, and the check ignores case and extra spaces.
3. Select Restore backup.

What happens next:

• The archive is downloaded and checked before anything is touched. If that check fails, your server is left exactly as it was.
• A snapshot of the current world is taken first, so there is a way back. It does not use a manual slot, and the restore does not proceed if the snapshot cannot be taken.
• Your server stops if it was running, so players online are disconnected.
• The save data is swapped in, and your server starts again if it was running.

The restore is queued rather than instant. The backup row and the console both report progress.

6. What you cannot do yourself yet

• There is no way to download a backup archive, or to upload your own save file, from the panel. Email support@rebetchi.com — there is no self-serve control for this yet.
• There is no way to hold an automatic backup past your plan's retention window. If you need an older world state, restore it before it ages out.

7. If your server is terminated

When a server is terminated, a final backup is taken as part of the shutdown and kept for 30 days, then permanently deleted. To get it back, buy the server again inside those 30 days — checkout offers the terminated server as something to restore, and the final backup is in its backup list. If it is not offered, email support@rebetchi.com before the 30 days are up.