Valheim is a popular survival game that can be hosted on various platforms, including dedicated servers. If you want to ensure your game world is safe and accessible, it’s essential to set up automatic backups of your server. Here’s how you can do it:

Automated Backups: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

With the popularity of Valheim, ensuring your server data is backed up regularly is important. This guide will help you automate the backup process using a simple script that copies your game files to an external storage solution like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Step 1: Create a Backup Directory

First, create a directory where all your backups will be stored. You can do this by navigating to your Valheim server’s root directory and creating a new folder named backups. The path might look something like /opt/valheim_server/backups.

mkdir -p /opt/valheim_server/backups

Step 2: Write the Backup Script

Create a shell script that will copy your game files to the backup directory. Save this script as backup_valheim.sh in your server’s root directory.

#!/bin/bash

## Define the source and destination directories
SOURCE_DIR="/opt/valheim_server"
BACKUP_DIR="/opt/valheim_server/backups"

## Get the current date for naming the backup file
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)

## Create a tar archive of the source directory and save it to the backup directory
tar -czvf "$BACKUP_DIR/valheim_world_$DATE.tar.gz" "$SOURCE_DIR/worlds"

echo "Backup created at: $BACKUP_DIR/valheim_world_$DATE.tar.gz"

Step 3: Schedule Regular Backups

To ensure your backups are taken regularly, you can schedule the script to run at specific times using cron. Open your crontab editor by running:

crontab -e

Add a line that runs your backup script daily at midnight. For example:

0 0 * * * /opt/valheim_server/backup_valheim.sh

Step 4: Verify the Backup

To ensure your backups are working as expected, you can manually run the script and check if the backup file is created in the backups directory.

/opt/valheim_server/backup_valheim.sh
ls -l /opt/valheim_server/backups/

Step 5: Store Your Backup Files Securely

Store your backup files on an external storage solution like Dropbox or Google Drive. This will allow you to access them even if your server goes offline.

• Dropbox: You can use the Dropbox CLI to upload your backups automatically.
• Google Drive: Use the google-drive-ocamlfuse package to mount your Google Drive and store backups directly.

Conclusion

Automating your Valheim server backups is a simple yet effective way to ensure that your game world remains safe. By following these steps, you can easily set up automatic backups using a shell script and schedule them to run regularly. This setup ensures that you can recover from any issues or data loss in case of an emergency.

Are there any specific questions or concerns about setting up automatic backups for your Valheim server?