Restore the local Omeka database from a backup file. Use when a pull, enrichment, or other operation corrupted the local DB and you need to roll back.
Roll back the local Omeka database to a previous backup. Use this after a failed enrichment, bad production pull, or any operation that corrupted local-only data (custom vocabularies, resource templates, etc.).
Only the database is restored. Uploaded files (images) are additive via rsync and don't need rollback.
db container healthybackups/ (created by make backup-db)make restore-db
Running without a BACKUP= argument lists available backups with timestamps
and sizes. Choose the one to restore.
Requires user approval. Overwrites the local database.
make restore-db BACKUP=backups/omeka-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.sql.gz
The command prints the restored item count for verification.
Confirm the database looks correct:
docker compose exec -T db mariadb -uomeka -pomeka omeka \
-e "SELECT COUNT(*) AS items FROM item;"
Optionally run make doctor-catalog to check field coverage.
| Scenario | Action |
|---|---|
make pull overwrote local customizations | Restore the backup taken before the pull |
| Enrichment wrote bad data | Restore, then re-run make enrich-apply from cache |
| Backfill applied wrong defaults | Restore the pre-backfill backup |
| Just want to start fresh | Restore any known-good backup |
make backup-db before destructive operations (the enrichment
pipeline does this automatically in Step 2).make enrich-apply — this is free (no API cost).