Backups

A server rarely breaks because of a hack. Far more often someone with permissions deletes a category, a role change goes wrong, or a second bot tidies up. In all three cases the question is the same: what did it look like yesterday?

/sicherung erstellen name:Vor dem Umbau

What is in it

Nine parts, each selectable on its own:

Part	What gets backed up	Default
Rollen (roles)	Names, colours, permissions, order	on
Kanäle & Kategorien (channels & categories)	Structure, topics, slowmode	on
Rechte je Kanal (permissions per channel)	Who may see which channel	on
Server-Einstellungen (server settings)	Name, verification, AFK, system channel	on
Emojis	Names and images	on
Bannliste (ban list)	Who is banned and why	on
Rollen der Mitglieder (members' roles)	Who had which role	on
Sticker	Names, descriptions, images	off
Spitznamen (nicknames)	The names given on this server	off

/sicherung erstellen name:Wochensicherung umfang:alles

What is not in it

Messages. Discord does not allow a message to be restored under someone else's name. What other bots sell as a "message backup" is a text file to read through — not a state you can play back. We would rather say that beforehand than afterwards.

So deleted channels take their messages with them. The structure comes back, the conversations in it do not.

Restoring

Two modes, and the difference is the whole point:

Ergänzen (add what is missing) only creates what is absent. It cannot break anything. That is the normal case: a category was deleted, you play it back, everything else stays untouched.

Ersetzen (replace) turns the server into a copy of the backup — and deletes everything that does not appear in it. That is the sledgehammer for the case where someone has laid waste to the server.

Both times you get the plan first, never the execution straight away:

/sicherung laden sicherung:Vor dem Umbau modus:ergaenzen

The bot then shows how many roles would be created, how many channels brought into line and how many deleted, how long that takes, and what it cannot do. Only the second command really starts it:

/sicherung laden sicherung:Vor dem Umbau modus:ergaenzen bestaetigen:ja

That these are two commands and not a confirmation by button is deliberate. A button gets clicked away without anyone having read what happens.

As a template for a second server

Matching is done by name, not by ID. A role "Team" in the backup finds the role "Team" on the target server, even if the two have completely different IDs. That is why a backup can also be applied to a second server — as a finished structure instead of handwork.

The same principle has a downside: rename a role and the next time you apply the backup you get two roles instead of one.

As a job, not as a command

A restore with three hundred steps takes minutes. It therefore runs as a job in the background, not inside the command. The bot carries on working normally in the meantime.

/sicherung stand

shows how far it has got. Only one job ever runs at a time — two parallel restores would share Discord's throughput and both be slow.

If the bot restarts in the middle, the job is marked as abgebrochen (cancelled) and is not blindly continued. A half-restored server is not a state you should carry on from unchecked. You then start it again; in "Ergänzen" mode that does nothing twice.

Backing up by itself

Under /sicherung setup:

• Regelmäßig sichern (back up regularly) — on
• Abstand in Tagen (interval in days) — 7

This is the setting that makes the difference. In our experience, backups made by hand are always old exactly when you need them.

At most 10 backups per server are kept; the oldest drop off. Without that limit, after a year 52 copies of the same server would be lying around — the oldest being both the most worthless and the largest.

When the bot gets thrown off the server

The backups stay. They do not hang off the server entry but stand on their own. That is exactly when you need them — after being thrown out, after a hack or after a mistake.

What the bot cannot do

Roles above its own. Discord lets no bot create or change roles that sit above its own. Drag the Fishbot role up in the role list before you apply a backup. The plan warns beforehand if this applies.

Members who are no longer there. Their roles cannot be given back. The plan says beforehand how many that is.

More emojis than the target server allows. That depends on its boost level.

The server owner's nickname. Nobody can change that, not even a bot.

Commands

Command	What it does
/sicherung setup	Permissions, report channel, automatic backup
/sicherung erstellen	Create a backup
/sicherung liste	All backups of the server
/sicherung info	What a backup contains
/sicherung laden	Show the plan — with bestaetigen:ja actually apply it
/sicherung stand	Progress of the running job

All commands require the Server verwalten (manage server) permission.