Neo4j Backup to Google Cloud Storage (GCS)

This repository contains a simple bash script for backing up and uploading a Neo4j database to a Google Cloud Storage bucket.

Dependencies

This script requires the following:

• neo4j-admin
  • Installs by default with neo4j
• gsutil Tool
  • Comes by default on Google Compute Engine instances (VMs)
  • Needs to be initialized and have access to write to the bucket

Permission Notes

When specifiying the bucket in the script config, the account associated with the gsutil tool, and the VM itself, need to have permissions to write to the bucket. See this gist for more details.

Installation

Copy this script to your virtual machine in a known location. It's likely a good idea to have this script run under the neo4j user, in case you encounter any permissions issues (like TLS certificates from certbot).

Next, set up environment variables.

Required Variables

# The base directory to upload to (your bucket name, and any subdirectories)
EXPORT NEO4J_GCS_UPLOAD_BUCKET=mybucket/subdirectory/

Optional Variables

# The local path to store your backup at before uploading
EXPORT NEO4J_GCS_LOCAL_PATH=/tmp/

NOTE: For persistance of these variables with system reboot, consider adding them to /etc/environment file, so that uploads continue even if there is a power loss.

You can do this like so:

nano /etc/environment

# Then add the following line and save the file
NEO4J_GCS_UPLOAD_BUCKET=mybucket/subdirectory/

Then logout and login to set this variable.

Cron Config

Once environment variables are set, add the required lines to the crontab to schedule exports and uploads.

# We likely want to be the neo4j user, to prevent permissions problems
sudo su - neo4j
crontab -e

# Every day at 11:00 PM, backup and upload the graph to GCS
0 23 * * * bash /path/to/neo4j_backup_to_gcs.sh