Backups, health checks, and guided updates built into the app itself — so running a school's own instance doesn't require a full-time system administrator.
Planned Not yet started — this page describes the intended design and build plan.
Overview
Self-hosting is Notipa's core difference from every hosted competitor, but it's also the biggest
adoption barrier for a school office without a dedicated IT department. A hosted SaaS product doesn't
need this, because someone else runs the servers. A self-hosted project has to make "running the
servers" not scary — for whoever holds the admin account, not just for a technical audience.
How it will work
One-click backup. A backup of the database and uploaded files, produced with a single command or button, downloadable or pushed to the school's own storage.
A tested restore path. A documented, verified way back from that same backup — not just an export with no proven way to use it.
A health-check page. An admin-only dashboard showing whether the database is reachable, storage is writable, and a backup is overdue.
A calm update process. A documented, low-drama update procedure — pull, migrate, restart — with a changelog the admin can read before updating.
Development plan
1Backup command
A management command producing a single portable archive — database dump plus media files — runnable manually or on a schedule via cron inside the existing Docker setup.
2Restore path
A documented and tested restore procedure from that same archive, including a dry-run or verification step so an admin can confirm a backup is actually usable before they need it.
3Health-check page
An admin-only dashboard reporting database connectivity, storage status, last backup timestamp, and current app version.
4Update documentation & testing
A step-by-step update guide kept current with each release, tested against the actual migration path from the previous version, not just written once and left to drift.
Technical considerations
A backup that's never been restored isn't a real backup — the restore path gets tested as part of this, not assumed to work.
This is infrastructure a school's admin interacts with rarely but needs to trust completely on the day they do.
Mostly Docker and management-command work rather than new user-facing surface — it extends Notipa's existing self-hosting story rather than adding a separate one.