Database backup failure alerts to your phone.

The silent disaster

Backups fail silently. A disk fills up, a password rotates, a network changes — and your nightly cron keeps exiting non-zero without anyone knowing. When you need the backup, it does not exist. Nerve sends a push the moment it fails.

PostgreSQL (pg_dump)

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"
DB="production"
BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/postgres"
TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M)

if pg_dump "$DB" | gzip > "$BACKUP_DIR/${DB}_${TIMESTAMP}.sql.gz"; then
  SIZE=$(du -h "$BACKUP_DIR/${DB}_${TIMESTAMP}.sql.gz" | cut -f1)
  echo "Backup OK: $DB ($SIZE) on $(hostname)" | nerve send
else
  echo "BACKUP FAILED: pg_dump $DB on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical
fi

MySQL / MariaDB (mysqldump)

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"
DB="app_production"
BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/mysql"
TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M)

if mysqldump --single-transaction "$DB" | gzip > "$BACKUP_DIR/${DB}_${TIMESTAMP}.sql.gz"; then
  echo "Backup OK: $DB on $(hostname)" | nerve send
else
  echo "BACKUP FAILED: mysqldump $DB on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical
fi

MongoDB (mongodump)

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"
DB="app"
BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/mongo"
TIMESTAMP=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M)

if mongodump --db="$DB" --archive="$BACKUP_DIR/${DB}_${TIMESTAMP}.gz" --gzip; then
  echo "Backup OK: mongo/$DB on $(hostname)" | nerve send
else
  echo "BACKUP FAILED: mongodump $DB on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical
fi

Check backup age (dead man's switch)

Catch silently broken backup crons: alert if the latest backup is older than expected.

#!/bin/bash
export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"
BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/postgres"
MAX_AGE_HOURS=26  # Nightly backup should be less than 26 hours old

LATEST=$(find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.sql.gz" -type f -printf '%T@\n' | sort -n | tail -1)
if [ -z "$LATEST" ]; then
  echo "NO BACKUPS FOUND in $BACKUP_DIR on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical
  exit 1
fi

AGE_HOURS=$(( ($(date +%s) - ${LATEST%.*}) / 3600 ))
if [ "$AGE_HOURS" -gt "$MAX_AGE_HOURS" ]; then
  echo "STALE BACKUP: latest is ${AGE_HOURS}h old on $(hostname)" | nerve send --severity critical
fi

Check backup size (catch empty dumps)

LATEST_FILE=$(ls -t /var/backups/postgres/*.sql.gz 2>/dev/null | head -1)
if [ -n "$LATEST_FILE" ]; then
  SIZE=$(stat -c%s "$LATEST_FILE")
  if [ "$SIZE" -lt 1000 ]; then
    echo "SUSPICIOUS BACKUP: $LATEST_FILE is only $SIZE bytes" | nerve send --severity alert
  fi
fi

Crontab

# Nightly backup at 2:30 AM
30 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/backup-postgres-nerve.sh

# Check backup age at 8 AM
0 8 * * * /usr/local/bin/check-backup-age.sh

Quick start

go install github.com/nerve-ink/nerve-cli/cmd/nerve@latest
export NERVE_DSN="nerve://TOKEN:[email protected]"
echo "BACKUP FAILED: pg_dump production on db-1" | nerve send --severity critical

FAQ