# Maintenance guide : testing backups

**URL:** <https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968>\
**Category:** Improvements\
**Created:** [January 2, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968 "2023-01-02T16:24:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Xaxou](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/45deac/32.png) [@Xaxou](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/Xaxou)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 4:24pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968/1 "2023-01-02T16:24:08Z")

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Hi there !

I never had to use the backups with my previous versions of MiaB (the ones working with Ubuntu 18.04). Since I upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, I decided (and had) to test how to restore them.

The maintenance guide is helpful ([https://mailinabox.email/maintenance.html#moving-boxes](https://mailinabox.email/maintenance.html#moving-boxes)), but I think it could me more precise even if I did not double-checked. From my own experience, I guess that the section “Create a new box” could be something like following :

> Then follow the steps in the setup guide’s section [Setting Up The Box](https://mailinabox.email/guide.html#setup). When you are prompted for the box’s hostname, you will need to use the hostname that you are currently using. **When creating the user, choose one which had admin privileges and set up the same password.**

Actually, I just tested with a new (non-existing) user : I tried neither a user without (former) admin privileges, nor a user with (former) admin privileges but with another password.

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**Author:** ![Emilia](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/user_avatar/discourse.mailinabox.email/emilia/32/2640_2.png) [@Emilia](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/Emilia)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 4:11am UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968/2 "2023-01-09T04:11:00Z")

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From what I understand the user you create on your new machine gets overwritten on backup restoration anyway, so it shouldn’t really matter.

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**Author:** ![Xaxou](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/45deac/32.png) [@Xaxou](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/Xaxou)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968/3 "2023-01-09T17:54:07Z")

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Should this be the case, I wouldn’t have made a post 🙂. Actually :

- The new user is not overwritten
- The restoration does not take place - former users are not recognized.

Moreover, I _suspect_ that other users with admin privileges :

- Appear as such after the back-up : one can log in with such user under box.domain.tld/admin/
- Are not recognised as admin in “a” database : I had a serious bug after one “other” admin tried to renew a password for a non-admin user.  
But I did not try to investigate further…

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**Author:** ![system](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/uploads/default/original/2X/4/4d0933d13c456b7e57f296aa6cc344525b6f0c70.png) [@system](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/system)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2023, 4:25pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/maintenance-guide-testing-backups/9968/4 "2023-03-04T16:25:06Z")

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