I actually use the document_exporter of paperless-ngx. I have a small bash script backup-paperless.sh that runs the paperless-ngx document_exporter and also makes a database dump using pg_dump. It sets up the restic backups logic with daily, weekly and monthly backups. I run that bash script using a systemd service paperless-backup.service. This service is run daily with the timer paperless-backup.timer, randomly at 3 am ±30 minutes. restic is smart, so it does only backup if there are changes. The incremental backups are great, in case the database corrupts without me noticing. I’ll share the scripts in case you are interested in how it works:

backup-paperless.sh

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

COMPOSE_DIR="/home/user/paperless-ngx/"
DUMP_DIR="$COMPOSE_DIR/sqldump"
EXPORT_DIR="/usr/src/paperless/export"

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY="sftp:abc123@abc123.your-storagebox.de:/backup/restic"
export RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE="/home/user/.config/restic/password"

mkdir -p "$DUMP_DIR"

cd "$COMPOSE_DIR"
docker compose exec -T webserver document_exporter "$EXPORT_DIR" -p
docker compose exec -T db pg_dump -U paperless paperless > "$DUMP_DIR/dump.sql"



restic backup "$DUMP_DIR" "$COMPOSE_DIR/export"

restic forget \
	--keep-daily 7 \
	--keep-weekly 4 \
	--keep-monthly 6 \
	--prune

rm -rf "$COMPOSE_DIR/export"/*
rm -rf "$DUMP_DIR"/*

paperless-backup.service

[Unit]
Description=Paperless-ngx Restic Backup
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target docker.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
User=user
WorkingDirectory=/home/user/paperless-ngx
ExecStart=/home/user/paperless-ngx/backup-paperless.sh

paperless-backup.timer

[Unit]
Description=Run paperless backup every 24 hours

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 03:00:00
Persistent=true
RandomizedDelaySec=30min

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

I use restic to backup my paperless documents to a Hetzner Storage Box. The setup was easy and I am independent of US cloud hosters.

Rule 7+8

Fully agree, so much wrong with it. It should be a phrase of the past.

I access my home server with Jellyfin exclusively via Tailscale. Until now, I thought I was safe, as I haven’t opened anything to “the open internet”. After reading your very nice guide, I feel like I forgot a lot. Supposed I trust Tailscale, is that enough?

I bought a Red Plus NAS 8TB a couple of weeks ago, because I didn’t know better. My mini PC is sitting a meter behind the monitors of my desktop PC and the noise is unbearable. So at the moment I just use the HDD as a backup, but it will be impossible for me to place it somewhere near where I live. Unfortunately I have no Ethernet in the kitchen.

I could have known this before but I didn’t know better. I had no idea those things run 24/7. You seem to be better informed than me, just wanted to warn you!

The GPU is actually NVIDIA! But planning an upgrade to an AMD card soon.

Is this a known bug? I never had that problem to be honest.

What you want is Tailscale. The downside of Tailscale is that you have to connect to a VPN to access your services, the advantage - it is so easy to set up on the server it feels like magic.

When our 7 days to die server is not working or we get some bug we are always joking in my friends group that it “must be a Linux issue” lol. We have checked so often and it always was a problem that had nothing to do with it. To be honest my Windows friends apps have problems with bugs and glitches in their games because the game studios often release their games in a poor state.

Open Modern Warfare?

I use Tailscale and it is absolutely fine. The problem is with other non tech savy people - the setup process is not straightforward so you need to help them a bit. They can’t just “connect”. But after that, Tailscale is great.