Restoring Data from Database Backup

[daviddahlberg]

During an upgrade from Nextcloud 13 to 14 I destroyed my installation.

What I still have:

• A fresh copy of the previous Nextcloud 13 installation (w/o data dir)
• A database dump of the NC13 sqlite3 database
• No data dir! (It is on a different disk, and it seems rsync stops at fs boundaries)
• A year-old full backup (installation + config + data + database from NC12)

I know that the files are lost, but is there a chance to use at least the existing DB,
which still includes Calendar and Contacts data?

I tried a “half” restore procedure (db, no data), which does not work: NC needs the user dirs, appdata dir etc… Using the old data dir and the new database does not seem to work either.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

Nextcloud version: 14.0.1.1 (OpenBSD ports)
Operating system and version: OpenBSD 6.4
Apache or nginx version: OpenBSD httpd (chrooted)
PHP version: 7.0

[Bernie_O]

@daviddahlberg

I know that the files are lost, but is there a chance to use at least the existing DB,
which still includes Calendar and Contacts data?

Yes, there is. You can use the script calcardbackup to create *.ics and *.vcf files from the calendar and contacts data in the database. Then you can import those backed up files to a new Nextcloud instance or import them to a client and let them sync the data to a new Nextcloud instance. Though calcardbackup is written for bash, it should also work with openBSDs ksh (from what I read). Otherwise you need to install bash which is also available for openBSD.
IMPORTANT: until release of version 0.8.0 you need to use the testing branch from calcardbackup (version 0.7.2-25 (22.10.2018) or higher)!

1. create a dummy Nextcloud directory structure for Nextclouds config.php:
   mkdir -p /usr/local/bin/nextcloud-dummy/config
2. create a file called config.php in that folder and add the dbtype:
   echo "'dbtype' => 'sqlite3'," > /usr/local/bin/nextcloud-dummy/config/config.php
3. restore the SQLite3 database from your backup in the dummy Nextcloud directory created in step 1:
   sqlite3 "/usr/local/bin/nextcloud-dummy/owncloud.db" < "/path/to/nextcloud-sqlite3.bak"
4. clone calcardbackup:
   git clone https://github.com/BernieO/calcardbackup
5. enter the repository directory:
   cd calcardbackup
6. switch to testing branch (this is only necessary until version 0.8.0 is released):
   git checkout testing
7. run calcardbackup and give as first argument the path to the dummy Nextcloud directory created in step 1:
   ./calcardbackup /usr/local/bin/nextcloud-dummy

Calcardbackup: bash script to backup Nextcloud calendars and addressbooks as *.ics/*.vcf files

I like to backup my Nextcloud calendars and addressbooks as *.ics/*.vcf files, because it is very easy to restore: just import the backed up *.ics/*.vcf file to the server or a client and the accidentally deleted data is back online. calcardbackup downloads all available calendars/addressbooks from a Nextcloud instance as .ics/.vcf files. All downloaded files are then compressed to a single file with the current date in the filename. Your Nextcloud instance is broken? No problem: as long as yo…

[daviddahlberg]

Looks good. You’re my hero =)
Found two minor interop issues with the script which I will post into your github.

[Bernie_O]

Cool - glad to hear it worked
Thanks for the github issues. Will have a look soonish.