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Backup

A backup is a local, managed snapshot of the current agent installation that captures the exact binaries, configuration, and supporting metadata stored on the device.

When it happens​

  • Manual: nimbus system agent-backup <name> creates an on-demand snapshot before risky changes.
  • Automatic: Executed before every upgrade, ensuring you can roll back even when the backend pushes new code.

Backups are incremental per invocation, so repeated runs keep the previous copies until you clean them up.

What is included​

  • nimbusd – agent daemon binary
  • nimbus – CLI binary
  • nimbus.json (stored in backup as config.json)
  • VERSION file (agent version string)
  • Metadata log file

Where it is stored​

  • Under the agent config directory (/etc/nimbus/backup/ on Linux) so the device keeps snapshots close to the running service.
  • Folder name matches the provided identifier: backup_<name>/. When the CLI runs automatically it uses a timestamp-like name such as backup20260113125514.

You can browse the folders directly or use nimbus system agent-backup list (or nimbus system agent-backup delete <name>) to manage retention.

Properties​

  • Fully agent-owned
  • Listed via agent APIs / CLI
  • Usable for rollback
  • Upgrades automatically call this workflow, so refer to Upgrade to understand when snapshots are generated and why the extra safety net exists.
  • Restores pull snapshots created here, so the Restore (Rollback) instructions explain how to recover the binaries and configs stored in these folders.