PingAuthorize

Policy database backups

The Policy Editor uses a policy database to store its Trust Framework, policies, commit history, and other data needed for proper operation.

By default, the Policy Editor backs up the policy database to a compressed file once a day by making an HTTP request to an admin connector. The Policy Editor retains up to five policy database backups at a time. Older backups are automatically deleted after this limit is reached.

To customize the handling of policy database backups, configure the admin port, backup schedule, and output location.

If you are using a managed RDBMS, such as PostgreSQL, instead of the default H2 database, make sure you implement backup strategies in line with your organization’s best practices.

Configure or disable policy database backups

Do one of the following to change the backup configuration:

  • Set the relevant environment variables and restart the Policy Editor.

  • Run the Policy Editor setup tool with the relevant command-line options.

The following table describes the relevant environment variables and command-line options. Learn more about using the environment variables in Starting PingAuthorize Policy Editor.

Environment variable Command-line option Description

PING_ADMIN_PORT

--adminPort <port>

Specifies the admin port, where administrative task endpoints like periodic policy database backups are handled.

PING_BACKUP_SCHEDULE

--backupSchedule <cron-expression>

Specifies a cron expression to indicate when to perform backups.

The default is 0 0 0 * * ?, which is midnight every day.

Learn more in Quartz 2.3.0 cron format.

The PAP evaluates the expression against the system timezone. For PingAuthorize Docker images, the default timezone is UTC.

PING_H2_BACKUP_DIR

N/A

Specifies the directory in which to place the policy H2 database backup files.

The default is SERVER_ROOT/policy-backup.

If you are using a Docker image, set this value to a directory on a volume that you mount when you start the Docker container.

N/A

--disablePeriodicBackups

Turns off periodic policy database backups.

Learn more about using a backup in Restoring a policy database from a backup.