PGT Backup

A simple, zero-configuration Laravel package that backs up your database to S3 (or any Laravel filesystem disk) on a schedule.

• Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite
• Compresses backups with gzip — no uncompressed data written to disk
• Configurable retention: automatically prunes old backups
• Runs daily at 2am by default via Laravel's scheduler
• Logs output to storage/logs/pgt-backup.log

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Laravel 10, 11, or 12
• mysqldump (MySQL) or pg_dump (PostgreSQL) installed on the server

Installation

composer require pgt/backup

The service provider is auto-discovered. No manual registration needed.

Configuration

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=pgt-backup-config

This creates config/pgt-backup.php. The defaults work out of the box if you have standard AWS_* environment variables set.

Environment variables

| Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | BACKUP_DISK | s3 | Filesystem disk to upload to | | BACKUP_PATH | pgt-backups | Directory path within the disk (root folder by default) | | BACKUP_CONNECTION | (default DB connection) | Database connection to back up | | BACKUP_REPLACE | false | Overwrite today's backup on re-run (date-only filename) | | BACKUP_KEEP | (none) | Max number of backup files to retain | | BACKUP_KEEP_FOR_DAYS | 30 | Delete backups older than this many days | | BACKUP_CRON | 0 2 * * * | Cron schedule (default: 2am daily) | | BACKUP_TIMEZONE | (app timezone) | Timezone for the schedule |

Both BACKUP_KEEP and BACKUP_KEEP_FOR_DAYS can be set simultaneously — a file is pruned if it violates either rule.

AWS setup

Add standard AWS credentials to your .env:

Ensure your S3 bucket policy allows PutObject, GetObject, ListBucket, and DeleteObject for the credentials you provide.

Scheduler

Add Laravel's scheduler to your server cron (once — if not already done):

* * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

The package registers its own schedule automatically. No changes to app/Console/Kernel.php are needed.

To disable the automatic schedule and run manually, set BACKUP_CRON= (empty) in your .env.

Running manually

php artisan pgt:backup

Override the connection or disk at runtime:

php artisan pgt:backup --connection=mysql --disk=s3

Backup files

Backups are stored as gzip-compressed SQL files. The filename format depends on the replace setting:

# replace = false (default) — one file per run, never overwritten
pgt-backups/2026-05-28_02-00-00_backup.sql.gz

# replace = true — one file per day, re-running the same day overwrites it
pgt-backups/2026-05-28_backup.sql.gz

Old backups are pruned automatically after each successful run based on your retention settings.

Logs

Each scheduled run appends output to:

storage/logs/pgt-backup.log

License

MIT — see LICENSE.