TeamCity allows creating a backup of TeamCity data via the Web UI. To create a backup file, navigate to the Backup Data page of the Administration section, specify backup parameters, as described below and start backup process.
Option
Description
Backup file
Specify the name for the backup file, the extention (.zip) will be added automatically. By default, TeamCity will store the backup file under < >/backup folder. For security reasons you cannot explicitly change this path in the UI. To modify this setting specify an absolute or relative path (the path should be relative to TeamCity Data Directory) in the < >/config/backup-config.xml file. For example:
Check this option to automatically add time stamp suffix to the specified filename. This may be useful to differentiate your backup files, if you don't clean up old backups.
tip
If the directory where backup files are stored already contains a file with the name specified above, TeamCity won't run backup - you will need either to specify another name, or enable time stamp suffix option, which allows to avoid this.
Time stamp suffix has specific format: sorting backup files alphabetically will also sort them chronologically.
Backup scope
Specify what kind of data you want to back up. The contents of the backup file depending on the scope is described right in the UI, when you select a scope. Note, that the size of the backup file and the time the backup process will take depends on the scope you select. You can select the "basic" scope, which includes server settings, projects and builds configurations, plugins and database, to reduce the resulting file size and the time spent on backup. However, you'll be able to restore only those settings which were backed up.
When you start backup, TeamCity will display its status and details of the current process including progress and estimates.
note
Important notes
Backup process takes some time that depends on how many builds there are in system. During this process the system's state can change, e.g. some builds may finish, other builds that were waiting in the build queue may start, new builds may appear in the build queue, etc. Note, that these changes won't influence the backup. TeamCity will backup only the data actual by the time the backup process was started.
The resulting backup file is a *.zip archive which has specific structure that doesn't depend on OS or database type you use. Thus, you can use the backup file to restore your data even on another Operating System, or with another database. If you'll change the contents of this file manually, TeamCity won't be able to restore your data.
On the History tab of Administration|Backup Data page you can review the list of created backup files, their size and date when the files were created. Note that only backup files created from web UI are shown here. If you have perfomed backup by means of maintainDB utility, they are not displayed on the History tab.