Automated PostgreSQL Backup with Monitoring Ping (Docker)

Why you need backup monitoring

It's not enough to run backups — you need to know they're working. A failed backup script that goes unnoticed can lead to data loss.

Step 1: Create a PostgreSQL backup script

Here's a basic shell script to dump your database to a file:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
DATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")
BACKUP_FILE="/backups/db_$DATE.sql"

pg_dump -U postgres -h db -F c -f "$BACKUP_FILE"

Make sure to mount a volume at /backups so the file is stored persistently.

Step 2: Add monitoring pings

Wrap the backup script with pings to your monitoring service:

#!/bin/bash
START_URL="https://ev.okchecker.com/p/<api-key>/backup-db?status=start"
SUCCESS_URL="https://ev.okchecker.com/p/<api-key>/backup-db?status=success"
FAIL_URL="https://ev.okchecker.com/p/<api-key>/backup-db?status=fail"

curl -fsS "$START_URL" || true

if pg_dump -U postgres -h db -F c -f "/backups/db_$(date +%F_%H-%M-%S).sql"; then
  curl -fsS "$SUCCESS_URL" || true
else
  curl -fsS "$FAIL_URL" || true
fi

This way, you’ll get alerts if the backup fails or hangs.

Step 3: Run in Docker with cron

Create a Dockerfile for your backup job:

FROM postgres:16
COPY backup.sh /backup.sh
RUN chmod +x /backup.sh
CMD ["/backup.sh"]

Then run it periodically with a cron job outside Docker, or use a scheduler like cron inside the container (with supercronic or cron).

Optional: Upload to cloud storage

You can extend the script to upload backups to S3, Google Cloud, or other providers. Just make sure to still ping before and after.

Conclusion

By combining Dockerized backups with pings, you get both reliability and observability. No more guessing if your backups work.