Configuration

Every option lives in config/backup-manager.php. This page walks through it section by section. The defaults are sensible, so you can leave most of the file untouched and change only what you need.

Profiles

A profile is a self-contained backup definition — what to back up and where to send it. You can define as many as you like; the default key decides which one runs when you don't name one explicitly.

 1'default' => env('BACKUP_PROFILE', 'default'),
 2 
 3'profiles' => [
 4    'default' => [
 5        'name' => env('APP_NAME', 'Laravel'),
 6        'type' => 'full',                 // full | database | files
 7        'databases' => [
 8            'connections' => [],          // [] = the default connection
 9            'exclude_tables' => [],
10            'schema_only_tables' => [],
11        ],
12        'files' => [
13            'include' => [base_path()],
14            'exclude' => [base_path('vendor'), base_path('node_modules'), base_path('.git')],
15            'follow_symlinks' => false,
16            'include_hidden' => true,
17        ],
18        'destinations' => ['local'],       // Laravel disk names
19        'path' => 'backups',               // sub-directory on each disk
20        'retention' => null,               // null = use shared retention
21    ],
22],

Add as many profiles as you need, for example a small frequent database backup and a full nightly one:

1'profiles' => [
2    'database' => ['type' => 'database', 'destinations' => ['s3']],
3    'nightly'  => ['type' => 'full', 'destinations' => ['s3', 'local']],
4],

Run a specific profile with php artisan backup:run --profile=nightly.

Compression

1'compression' => [
2    'algorithm' => env('BACKUP_COMPRESSION', 'gzip'),  // none | gzip | bzip2 | zstd
3    'level' => (int) env('BACKUP_COMPRESSION_LEVEL', 6),
4],

gzip and bzip2 are pure-PHP and always available. zstd requires the zstd binary. See Files.

Encryption

1'encryption' => [
2    'algorithm' => env('BACKUP_ENCRYPTION', 'none'),   // none | aes-256-cbc | aes-256-gcm
3    'key' => env('BACKUP_ENCRYPTION_KEY'),             // 32 bytes, base64: accepted
4],

See Security for details and trade-offs.

Integrity

Each backup is checksummed so you can later prove it wasn't corrupted; it can optionally be signed as well (signing is a Pro feature):

1'integrity' => [
2    'checksum' => env('BACKUP_CHECKSUM', 'sha256'),    // sha256 | sha512
3    'signing' => [
4        'enabled' => (bool) env('BACKUP_SIGNING', false),
5        'key' => env('BACKUP_SIGNING_KEY'),            // defaults to the encryption key
6    ],
7],

Retention

1'retention' => [
2    'strategy' => env('BACKUP_RETENTION', 'gfs'),      // gfs | simple
3    'gfs' => ['keep_daily' => 7, 'keep_weekly' => 4, 'keep_monthly' => 6, 'keep_yearly' => 2],
4    'simple' => ['keep_latest' => 10],
5    'max_age_days' => 365,
6    'max_storage_megabytes' => null,
7],

See Retention.

Queue

Run backups in the background through Laravel's queue, instead of blocking the console command or request that started them:

1'queue' => [
2    'enabled' => (bool) env('BACKUP_QUEUE', false),
3    'connection' => env('BACKUP_QUEUE_CONNECTION'),
4    'queue' => env('BACKUP_QUEUE_NAME', 'backups'),
5    'timeout' => (int) env('BACKUP_QUEUE_TIMEOUT', 3600),
6],

Scheduling

1'schedule' => [
2    'enabled' => (bool) env('BACKUP_SCHEDULE', false),
3    'backup' => '0 2 * * *',
4    'cleanup' => '0 4 * * *',
5    'monitor' => '0 6 * * *',
6],

When enabled, the package registers these commands with the Laravel Scheduler automatically. See Scheduling & monitoring.

Monitoring & notifications

Control the health check and who hears about it when a backup fails or a destination starts to look unhealthy:

 1'monitoring' => [
 2    'max_backup_age_hours' => 25,
 3    'store_history' => true,
 4    'notifications' => [
 5        'enabled' => true,
 6        'on' => ['failure', 'unhealthy'],   // success | failure | unhealthy
 7        'mail' => ['to' => []],
 8        'slack' => ['webhook_url' => env('BACKUP_NOTIFY_SLACK')],
 9    ],
10],

Binaries

Leave null to auto-discover from PATH, or set absolute paths:

1'binaries' => [
2    'mysqldump' => env('BACKUP_MYSQLDUMP_PATH'),
3    'mysql' => env('BACKUP_MYSQL_PATH'),
4    'pg_dump' => env('BACKUP_PGDUMP_PATH'),
5    'psql' => env('BACKUP_PSQL_PATH'),
6    'zstd' => env('BACKUP_ZSTD_PATH'),
7],

Timeouts & workspace

1'timeout' => ['database' => 3600, 'process' => 3600],  // seconds; null = unlimited
2'working_directory' => storage_path('app/backup-manager/temp'),

The working directory must have enough free space for the largest backup while it is assembled, compressed and encrypted before upload.