Tools - eXist: A NoSQL Database and Application Development Platform - page 382

Backup and shutdown
This target creates a full backup of your database, zips it, and then shuts down eXist:
<target name= "BackupShutdown"
description= "Back up the full database and shut down" >
<delete dir= "backup" />
<mkdir dir= "backup" />
<xdb:backup uri= "${BaseUri}"
user= "${Username}" password= "${Password}" dir= "backup" />
<zip destfile= "backup.zip" basedir= "backup" />
<delete dir= "backup" />
<xdb:shutdown uri= "${BaseUri}" user= "${Username}" password= "${Password}" />
</target>
From top to bottom, this code does the following:
Makes sure we have an empty backup directory by first deleting and then (re)cre‐
ating it.
Makes eXist back up into this directory. If you look inside after the backup you'll
find a directory/file structure much like your database's collection/resource
structure. Added are __contents__.xml files that contain important eXist proper‐
ties (like security settings).
Zips this directory into a backup.zip file (this is easier to handle, and you can
restore directly from such a ZIP file).
Removes the backup directory (since everything is in the ZIP now)
Shuts down eXist.
The preceding example performs a full database backup, but you can just as easily
make partial backups—for instance, from your extremely important project collec‐
tion. Simply have the uri attribute point to the right collection, like so:
<xdb:backup uri= "${BaseUri}/apps/myimportantproject" ...
Of course, there is also an xdb:restore task that lets you restore a backup. This task
can use a backup ZIP file directly (no need to unpack it first).
Create separate backups for all subcollections
The following example shows you how to iterate over lists returned by some of eXist's
Ant tasks using the Ant-Contrib extension. It extends the previous example by not
creating a full backup, but a separate backup of each subcollection of /db :
<target name= "SeparateBackups"
description= "Make separate backups of all subcollections of /db" >
<xdb:list uri= "${BaseUri}" user= "${Username}" password= "${Password}"