How to backup Volumes using command line

[enricosoft]

I'm trying to backup all the volumes related to a container.
The container is running as part of docker-compose.
I'm running podman on windows server 2022.

I found the podman doc about how to export volume to external tar file.
https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-volume-export.1.html

I tried these and I attached the related error for each line:

podman volume export myVolName --output uploads.tar // Error: accepts 1 arg(s), received 3
podman volume export myVolName -o=uploads.tar // Error: accepts 1 arg(s), received 2
podman volume export myVolName > uploads.tar // Error: cannot use command "podman volume export" with the remote podman client

Seems that the documentation is not updated for example 1 and 2.

For sample 3 I don't understand why I can't run that command from the podman CLI installed on the same server.
Should I run the container with privileges? If so, how?
Does Podman Desktop have its own terminal to run this kind of commands? From GUI I cannot performs actions on volumes... I cannot select a volume and I don't see any menu in "actions" column

Thanks in advance

[marcokrikke]

I managed to export/import volumes like this with a remote Podman on MacOS. An example below for exporting volumes from Podman 4 and importing them again into Podman 5.

Exporting

• SSH into the Podman machine: podman machine ssh
• Export the volume(s): core@localhost:~$ podman volume export <volumename> -o export.tar
• Exit the session (Ctrl+D)
• Get info on the system connections: podman system connection list

➜  ~ podman system connection list                                                        
Name                         URI                                                         Identity                                        Default
podman-machine-default       ssh://[email protected]:64418/run/user/501/podman/podman.sock  /Users/user/.ssh/podman-machine-default  true
podman-machine-default-root  ssh://[email protected]:64418/run/podman/podman.sock           /Users/user/.ssh/podman-machine-default  false

• SCP the files from the machine to your host:scp -i ~/.ssh/podman-machine-default -P 64418 core@localhost:~/export.tar .

Importing

• (In my case: upgrade Podman first)
• Create the volume, for example on the command line or via the GUI
• Get info on the system connections again (they have changed between Podman 4 and 5)

➜  ~ podman system connection list                                                                                             
Name                         URI                                                         Identity                                                           Default     ReadWrite
podman-machine-default       ssh://[email protected]:55674/run/user/501/podman/podman.sock  /Users/user/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine  false       true
podman-machine-default-root  ssh://[email protected]:55674/run/podman/podman.sock           /Users/user/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine  true        true

• SCP the files from your host to the machine:scp -i /Users/user/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/machine -P 55674 export.tar root@localhost:~
• SSH into the Podman machine again: podman machine ssh
• Import the volume(s): root@localhost:~$ podman volume import export.tar <volumename>

[nalind]

podman volume export expects the name of the volume to be last, after options like --output. The order does matter to it.