Restoring databases is a common practice in most organizations. Using a Runbook in Octopus can make this process easy and simple allowing you to restore backups ad-hoc or according to a scheduled trigger.
Permissions
In this example, you will restore a Microsoft SQL Server database using a step template from our community library called SQL - Restore Database. This template supports both:
- SQL authentication.
- Integrated authentication.
In this example, we’ll use SQL authentication and provide both a SQL username and password. It’s important to check that you have the correct permissions to perform the backup. You can find more information about this in the permissions documentation.
Create the runbook
- To create a runbook, navigate to Project ➜ Operations ➜ Runbooks ➜ Add Runbook.
- Give the Runbook a name and click SAVE.
- Click DEFINE YOUR RUNBOOK PROCESS, then click ADD STEP.
- Add a new step template from the community library called SQL - Restore Database.
- Fill out all the parameters in the step. It’s best practice to use variables rather than entering the values directly in the step parameters.
| Parameter | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Server | Name database server | SQLserver1 |
| Database | Name of the database to restore | MyDatabase |
| Backup Directory | Location of where the backup file resides | \\mybackupserver\backupfolder |
| SQL login | Name of the SQL Account to use (leave blank for Integrated Authentication) | MySqlLogin |
| SQL password | Password for the SQL Account | MyPassword |
| Compression Option | Use compression for this backup | Enabled |
| Devices | The number of backup devices to use for the backup | 1 |
| Backup file suffix | Specify a suffix to add to the backup file names. If left blank, the current date, in the format given by the DateFormat parameter, is used | ProdRestore |
| Separator | Separator used between database name and suffix | _ |
| Date Format | Date format to use if backup is suffixed with a date stamp (e.g. yyyy-MM-dd) | yyyy-MM-dd |
Use variables where possible so you can assign scopes to values. This will ensure credentials and database connections are correct for the environment you’re deploying to.
After adding all of the required parameters, click Save, and you have a basic runbook to restore your SQL database. You can also add additional steps to add security to your runbooks, such as a manual intervention step for business approvals.
Samples
We have a Target - Windows Space on our Samples instance of Octopus. You can sign in as Guest to take a look at this example and more runbooks in the OctoFX project.
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Page updated on Wednesday, October 4, 2023