Backing Up Your Windrose Server

Back up your Windrose server before major changes so you have a restore point if something goes wrong.

Automatic Backups

WinterNode automatically backs up your entire server every 12 hours. These backups cover everything, so most disaster-recovery scenarios are already handled.

Manual backups are useful when you want a snapshot at a specific moment, like right before:

• A major game update
• Uploading a different world
• Changing server configuration

What to Back Up

For a complete Windrose backup, you need two things:

1. Your world folder Location: R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB/0.10.0/Worlds/<your-island-id>/

This is the folder with the 32-character hex name. It contains all your world data: terrain, structures, player progress, and everything in the world.

2. The server config Location: R5/ServerDescription.json

This file holds your server name, invite code, password, and most importantly the WorldIslandId field that tells the server which world to load. If you restore your world folder without also restoring this file, the server may point at the wrong folder.

How to Take a Manual Backup

Step 1: Stop Your Server

Stop the server before downloading files. This ensures the files are in a consistent state (not mid-write).

1. Log in to the Game Control Panel
2. Select your Windrose server
3. Click Stop and wait for shutdown to complete

Step 2: Download the World Folder

1. In the Game Control Panel, go to File Manager
2. Navigate to R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB/.
3. Open the folder named after the current game version (for example, 0.10.0), then open Worlds/.
4. Find your world folder (the 32-character hex folder)
5. Click the … next to it and select Compress. A .tar.gz file with the same name appears in the same folder once compression finishes.
6. Download the .tar.gz file to your PC
7. Store it somewhere safe (external drive, cloud storage)

Step 3: Download the Server Config

1. In File Manager, navigate to R5/
2. Find ServerDescription.json
3. Click the … next to it and select Download
4. Store it alongside your world folder backup

Step 4: Restart Your Server

1. In the Game Control Panel, click Start.
2. Wait for the server status to show Online. This usually takes 1-2 minutes.

How to Restore from a Backup

Restoring is the reverse of uploading a world. Full instructions are in How to Upload an Existing World to Your Windrose Server, but here’s the short version:

1. Stop your server
2. Upload the compressed archive to R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default/RocksDB/0.10.0/Worlds/.
3. Right-click the uploaded file and select Decompress.
4. Upload ServerDescription.json back to R5/ (overwrite the existing file)
5. Verify that the WorldIslandId field in ServerDescription.json matches your restored world folder’s hex name
6. Start your server

If the server loads a new empty world, go back and check that WorldIslandId exactly matches the restored folder’s name.

A Note on RocksDB

Windrose saves world data in RocksDB format, which is a database, not a single file. The world folder contains multiple database files (CURRENT, MANIFEST-*, LOCK, IDENTITY, LOG, *.sst) that are only valid together.

Do not copy individual files out of the world folder and expect them to work as a backup. Always compress and download the entire folder as a unit.

Windrose’s Automatic Backups

Windrose servers automatically back up as well. These can be used to revert to an earlier version of the save if you didn’t take a manual backup.

They are stored in R5/Saved/SaveProfiles/Default_Backups. You can restore them the same way you would upload a world.