[AIP] Portabase v1.29 - database configuration from the dashboard, MongoDB SRV support and file availability checks

[killianlarcher@lemmy.world]

DISCLAIMER: All the code was written by humans until December 2025. Since then, we have started using AI as an assistant, mainly to speed up debugging and for low-value-added tasks (UI and some simple logic). However, all code is reviewed by a human, and the architecture is designed exclusively by humans.

Hi everyone,

We’ve just released Portabase 1.29, with another round of improvements focused on configuration, reliability and reducing the amount of manual setup required.

Repo: https://github.com/Portabase/portabase

Quick recap if you’re new to Portabase

Portabase is an open-source, self-hosted backup and restore platform designed for data retention, disaster recovery and homogeneous database migrations. It uses a central dashboard with lightweight agents deployed close to your databases and workloads.

We currently support 9 database engines (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, SQLite, Redis, Valkey, Firebird SQL and Microsoft SQL Server) as well as Docker volume backups.

What’s new

You can now add new databases directly from the dashboard!
Until now, databases were only declared through the agent's configuration file (databases.json). Both approaches can be used depending on how you prefer to manage your infrastructure.

Portabase now checks whether backup files are actually still available in the configured storage.
If a file has been deleted, moved, or is otherwise unavailable, it is now marked as unavailable instead of being presented as a valid restore candidate.

The new version of the agent (v1.19) adds support for MongoDB SRV connections, making it easier to connect to MongoDB deployments using mongodb+srv://, including managed/cloud MongoDB environments.

What’s next

We’re now working on several areas:

• Deploying a public Portabase demo
• Improving and restructuring the documentation
• Enhancing the agent retry and resilience system
• Additional dashboard UX/UI improvements
• A database-specific options system, allowing advanced parameters to be configured for each supported engine
• Audit logs across the ecosystem for better traceability

As usual, feedback is welcome. If you find bugs, have trouble with the new dashboard-based configuration, or need database-specific options we don’t support yet, feel free to open an issue on GitHub.

Thanks!