Zone management
Backups and restore
Create manual, scheduled, and pre-push DNS zone backups. Restore an earlier snapshot into the editor, preview the resulting plan, and review retention.
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Backups capture the record sets each provider exposes before a push, on demand, or on a paid schedule; restore loads one snapshot into the managed-zone draft. The key point is that restore never writes DNS immediately: you inspect the restored draft, preview it, and push it through the normal confirmation flow.
Backup types#
A backup belongs to one provider connection and one zone name. Multi-provider zones therefore produce separate snapshots rather than one merged file.
| Label in Backups | When it is taken | Plan requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Before push | Immediately before that provider's planned writes | Every plan; independent of the scheduled-backup setting |
| Manual | When an owner or admin selects Back up now | Every plan |
| Scheduled | When the zone's selected schedule is due | Pro for daily; Agency for daily or hourly |
Each entry shows the provider connection, backup kind, record-set count, relative time, and local date and time. The count is for record sets, not individual values inside a multi-value set.
A backup is read-only data. Creating one does not alter the provider, saved draft, DNSSEC, or delegation. DNSMigrator continues to other providers after an exception. A missing zone or rejected listZones() call is treated as no match and creates neither a backup row nor a Backup failed event; credential-load and found-zone read exceptions do emit that event.
Create a manual backup#
Open the backup panel
Go to Zones → select the zone → Backups. At least one provider must be attached before Back up now is enabled.
Start the backup
Select Back up now. DNSMigrator queues a manual backup job and reads each provider in the zone.
Wait for provider entries
The confirmation says Backup started and notes that entries appear after a few seconds. A successful provider read creates one Manual row.
Inspect or export it
Select View to open the record sets in the browser, or Zone file to download a BIND-format file with a header naming the zone, provider connection, and snapshot time.
The view shows relative owner name, type, values, and TTL. Alias records are displayed as their alias target. Use the downloaded zone file when you need an archive outside DNSMigrator or want to inspect the snapshot with the zone-file validator.
Configure scheduled backups#
Open Zones → select the zone → Settings → Monitoring and backups, then choose Off, Daily, or Hourly under Scheduled backups.
| Plan | Available schedule |
|---|---|
| Free | Off only; manual and pre-push backups still work |
| Pro | Off or Daily |
| Agency | Off, Daily, or Hourly |
The service rejects a paid schedule on Free and rejects Hourly on Pro, even if a request is sent outside the form. The background scheduler looks for due zones every five minutes. For Pro, scheduled work is due once at least a day has passed since the newest scheduled backup. For Agency, Hourly is due after an hour and Daily remains daily.
Only the newest backup with kind Scheduled controls the next due time. A manual or Before push snapshot does not postpone a scheduled backup. Turning the setting to Off stops future scheduled jobs but leaves existing snapshots available.
Pre-push protection#
Every managed-zone push recomputes each provider plan from a fresh read. For a provider that can be read and opened, it stores that live state as Before push immediately before calling the adapter. The release does not compare the fresh operation set with the reviewed preview. This backup is available on every plan and is independent of the scheduled-backup setting.
A provider that fails during the fresh read or zone-open phase is not backed up or written. When a provider zone has just been created, its Before push backup can legitimately contain no record sets.
Provider writes run one at a time, but a failure does not reverse providers that already succeeded. The overall push is Failed, successful operations remain live, and available snapshots stay under Backups. Use them to prepare a corrective push; DNSMigrator does not automatically overwrite a provider with its backup.
See Preview and push for the release version gate, fresh re-plan, and partial-failure behavior.
Restore into the editor#
Choose the exact provider snapshot
Under Backups, find the provider, kind, and timestamp you need. Select View first when you are not certain which state it contains.
Clear unsaved edits
Restore into editor is disabled while the current browser draft has unsaved changes. Select Save changes or Discard before continuing.
Load the snapshot
Select Restore into editor. DNSMigrator replaces the saved draft's records with the snapshot, increments the zone version, marks the zone pending, and opens Records.
Review the normalized draft
Provider snapshots can contain records that should not be managed directly. DNSMigrator removes the SOA record and the zone-apex NS record while loading; the current provider assignments, ignore rules, defaults, DNSSEC choice, and other zone settings remain in place.
Preview and apply
Make any needed edits, select Save changes if you changed the loaded records, then select Preview changes. Review every provider and complete the typed push confirmation.
Loading a backup is an immediate saved-draft change, not a provider write. This gives you a review point before the release planner checks that snapshot against every attached provider. The next push takes a new Before push backup of the then-current live state before applying the older records.
Retention and visibility#
The Backups panel loads the newest 50 snapshots for the workspace and zone name. That is a display/query limit, not a policy that deletes the 51st snapshot.
The current managed-zone service has no age-based retention setting, maximum-backup cleanup job, or per-snapshot delete control. Existing snapshots remain in the database unless they are removed by an administrative data-lifecycle operation outside this UI. Because the product does not expose a guaranteed retention duration, download important snapshots with Zone file and keep them in your own versioned storage.
Deleting a provider connection does not make its existing backup unreadable; the row retains the provider identifier and record data even when the connection reference is cleared. Backup lookup is restricted to the current workspace.
Backup failure alerts#
Under Notifications, a channel can subscribe to Backup failed. DNSMigrator emits this event for credential-load or found-zone read exceptions and links to the zone, then continues with remaining providers. A failed or empty zone listing is treated as no matching zone and does not emit this event. Configure and test delivery under Notifications and webhooks.