Problem backing up my data after changed password in metabase container

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1

I run metabase on a docker container and I use postgres for my database.
I have created a big amount of questions, charts and dashboards.

I backup all my data just by dumping the database and then importing it again like this

docker exec -t postgres_container pg_dump -U user -d metabase > metabase_dump.sql

And import it like this:

DROP SCHEMA public CASCADE;
CREATE SCHEMA public;
GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA public to PUBLIC;
GRANT CREATE ON SCHEMA public to PUBLIC;
cat metabase_dump.sql | docker exec -i postgres_container psql -U user -d metabase

I had a problem when I wanted to change my passwords for the postgres user and the metabase user.

Here is a simplified version of my compose file

postgres:
    image: postgres
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: myuser
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: pass
      POSTGRES_MULTIPLE_DATABASES: db1, db2
      METABASE_USER: metabaseuser
      METABASE_PASSWORD: metabaseuser
      METABASE_DB_NAME: metabase

  metabase:
    restart: "always"
    image: metabase/metabase
    environment:
      - MB_DB_TYPE=postgres
      - MB_DB_DBNAME=metabase
      - MB_DB_PORT=5432
      - MB_DB_USER=metabaseuser
      - MB_DB_PASS=metabasepass
      - MB_DB_HOST=postgres
      - MB_ENCRYPTION_SECRET_KEY=8901234567890123
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    depends_on:
      - postgres

I changed the username password and encryption key, rebuild and restarted my containers then imported my metabase dump with the command shown above.
When I tried to login metabase prompt me to create a new user (usually it logs in automatically).
I couldn’t login with my old user account that btw existed in the core_users table of metabase.
I bypassed this problem by creating a new user, logged out and re-logged in with my account.
After when I went to the administrator page the first tab (settings) was not showing anything.
When I tried to view some of my dashboards I got the error:

 Invalid value for string: must be either "true" or "false" (case-insensitive).

I believe that my data have some sort of protection by the encryption key and because I changed it and “forced” my old configuration to the database something crashed.

Now I want to find a better way to backup my data and not risk losing them, I searched the forum for the backup topic but I did not find anything I can use. The documentation page also does not provide much info only this:

 Simply follow the same instructions you would use for making any normal database backup. It’s a 
 large topic more fit for a DBA to answer, but as long as you have a dump of the Metabase database 
 you’ll be good to go.

Metabase is a great tool and having an easy way for backing up the database would be awesome.

Also as this is my first post to the forums I wan’t to congratulate the developers for this amazing tool.

2

Hi @kostas

If you have changed MB_ENCRYPTION_SECRET_KEY, then it cannot read any of the existing database connection details, so that’s probably what’s causing all the problems.

But like the documentation says, you should find the best backup documentation for whatever database you’re using. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Metabase, which is why the documentation is trying to refer to your database documentation.

Metabase can be run in many different environments, and different scaling, so no backup documentation we could write, would cover all aspects.
And since backup is probably the most essential function, then it should always be done correctly.

3

Thanks for the info, so can I change the encryption key and keep my data?

4

@kostas I haven’t tried, but I guess you would have to re-save the connection settings for all databases in Admin > Databases, if you changed the encryption key.