TeslaMate → Filen Cloud Backup

Automated daily PostgreSQL backup of your TeslaMate database to Filen encrypted cloud storage.

What's Included

File	Purpose
backup.sh	Main backup script — dumps DB, uploads to Filen, rotates old backups
restore.sh	Restore script — lists backups, downloads from Filen, restores DB
install-cron.sh	One-command cron job installer
.env	Configuration (created on first run of install-cron.sh)

Setup Guide

Step 1: Install Filen CLI on your VPS

curl -sL https://filen.io/cli.sh | bash

Verify installation:

filen --version

Note: Filen is sunsetting the current TypeScript CLI in favor of a Rust rewrite. The current v0.0.36 works fine. If the install script fails, download the binary directly from https://github.com/FilenCloudDienste/filen-cli/releases/tag/v0.0.36

Step 2: Authenticate Filen CLI

Interactive login (do this once via SSH):

filen login

Enter your Filen email and password when prompted.

For headless/cron use, export an auth config so the CLI doesn't need interactive login:

filen export-auth-config

This creates a .filen-cli-auth-config file. The CLI will use it automatically for future non-interactive commands.

If you have 2FA enabled on Filen: You'll need to provide the 2FA code during initial login. After that, the exported auth config handles subsequent sessions.

Step 3: Create the backup folder on Filen

filen mkdir /teslamate-backups

Test that uploads work:

echo "test" > /tmp/filen-test.txt
filen upload /tmp/filen-test.txt /teslamate-backups/
filen ls /teslamate-backups/
rm /tmp/filen-test.txt

You should see filen-test.txt listed. Delete it:

filen rm /teslamate-backups/filen-test.txt

Step 4: Clone this to your VPS

# If from a repo:
git clone <your-repo-url> ~/teslamate-filen-backup
cd ~/teslamate-filen-backup

# Or just copy the files:
mkdir -p ~/teslamate-filen-backup
# ... copy backup.sh, restore.sh, install-cron.sh here

chmod +x backup.sh restore.sh install-cron.sh

Step 5: Configure

Run the installer once — it will create the .env file:

./install-cron.sh

Edit the .env file to match your setup:

nano .env

Key settings to verify:

# Must point to where your TeslaMate docker-compose.yml lives
TESLAMATE_COMPOSE_DIR=$HOME/teslamate

# Must match the service name in your docker-compose.yml
# (usually "database" or "db")
TESLAMATE_DB_SERVICE=database

# Must match POSTGRES_USER and POSTGRES_DB in your docker-compose.yml
TESLAMATE_DB_USER=teslamate
TESLAMATE_DB_NAME=teslamate

Step 6: Test the backup

cd ~/teslamate-filen-backup
set -a && source .env && set +a
./backup.sh

You should see output like:

[2026-02-11 03:00:00] ═══ TeslaMate Backup Starting ═══
[2026-02-11 03:00:01] Dumping database...
[2026-02-11 03:00:05] Database dump complete: teslamate_20260211_030000.sql.gz (12M)
[2026-02-11 03:00:06] Uploading to Filen: /teslamate-backups/
[2026-02-11 03:00:15] Upload complete
[2026-02-11 03:00:16] ✓ Upload verified on Filen
[2026-02-11 03:00:16] Rotating local backups (keeping last 7 days)...
[2026-02-11 03:00:16] Local backups remaining: 1
[2026-02-11 03:00:16] ═══ Backup Complete ═══

Verify on Filen:

filen ls /teslamate-backups/

Step 7: Install the cron job

./install-cron.sh

This installs a daily 3:00 AM backup. To change the schedule:

# Every 12 hours
./install-cron.sh '0 */12 * * *'

# Twice daily at 3 AM and 3 PM
./install-cron.sh '0 3,15 * * *'

# Daily at midnight
./install-cron.sh '0 0 * * *'

Verify:

crontab -l

Restoring a Backup

List available backups (both local and on Filen):

./restore.sh

Restore the most recent local backup:

./restore.sh latest

Restore a specific backup:

./restore.sh teslamate_20260211_030000.sql.gz

If the file is only on Filen (not local), the script will download it first.

After restoring: If you had custom SQL views (from the dashboards guide), re-run them:

docker compose exec -T database psql -U teslamate -d teslamate < ~/teslamate-custom-dashboards/sql/custom_views.sql

Optional: Notifications

ntfy.sh (free, no account needed)

Add to your .env:

NOTIFY_URL=https://ntfy.sh/your-unique-topic-name

Then install the ntfy app on your phone and subscribe to the same topic. You'll get a push notification after each backup: ✅ TeslaMate backup OK: teslamate_20260211.sql.gz (12M)

Telegram

Create a bot via @BotFather, get your chat ID, then use:

NOTIFY_URL=https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/sendMessage?chat_id=<CHAT_ID>&text=

Note: for Telegram the script would need slight modification since Telegram expects the message as a URL parameter. The ntfy.sh approach is simpler.

Storage Estimates

TeslaMate age	Approx dump size	Monthly Filen usage (daily backups)
1 month	~5-15 MB	~150-450 MB
6 months	~20-50 MB	~600 MB - 1.5 GB
1 year	~40-100 MB	~1.2-3 GB
2+ years	~80-200 MB	~2.4-6 GB

With default retention (30 days on Filen, 7 days local), you'll use roughly 30× your daily dump size on Filen at steady state.

Filen's free tier gives you 10 GB, which should be plenty for the first year+.

Troubleshooting

"Filen CLI not found"

Make sure the binary is in your PATH:

# Check where it installed
ls ~/.filen-cli/bin/ 2>/dev/null || ls /usr/local/bin/filen 2>/dev/null

# Add to PATH if needed (add to ~/.bashrc)
export PATH="$HOME/.filen-cli/bin:$PATH"

For cron jobs, the PATH may be different. You can set FILEN_CLI in .env to the full path:

FILEN_CLI=$HOME/.filen-cli/bin/filen

"Authentication failed" in cron

The cron environment doesn't have the same environment as your shell. Make sure you ran filen export-auth-config and that the auth config is in the default data directory (~/.config/filen-cli/ or ~/.filen-cli/).

"Docker permission denied"

If running as a non-root user, make sure your user is in the docker group:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
# Then log out and back in

Database dump is empty or tiny

Check that TeslaMate is actually running and has data:

cd ~/teslamate
docker compose ps
docker compose exec database psql -U teslamate -d teslamate -c "SELECT count(*) FROM positions;"

Cron job not running

Check cron logs:

grep CRON /var/log/syslog | tail -20
# or
journalctl -u cron --since "1 hour ago"

Also check the cron-specific log:

cat ~/teslamate-filen-backup/cron.log