Hosting Operations

List Restore Points Before a Drill

You need a quick, timestamped list of available backup restore points before choosing one to test.

Command

cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %h\n' | sort -r

What changed

Nothing changes. The command reads manifest paths and prints their backup directories.

Danger

safe

When to use it

Use at the start of a restore drill or incident to inventory candidate recovery points.

When not to use it

Do not treat this as proof the archive contents are valid; it only proves manifests exist.

Undo or recovery

No undo needed because this command is read-only.

Expected output

Dated backup directories sorted newest first.

demo script

Disposable terminal steps

cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -print | sort
cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %h\n' | sort -r

Terminal transcript Demo JSON

simulated output

What it looks like

disposable vessel

::fixture-ready::
$ cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -print | sort
backups/2026-06-24/MANIFEST.txt
backups/2026-06-25/MANIFEST.txt
::exit-code::0
$ cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %h\n' | sort -r
2026-06-25 12:00 backups/2026-06-25
2026-06-25 12:00 backups/2026-06-24
::exit-code::0

YouTube Short

List restore points first.

Before you restore anything, list the dated backup manifests. A drill needs a known recovery point, not a guess.

experiments

A/B tests to run

Metric: save_rate

A: List restore points before restoring.

B: A backup you cannot find is not a recovery plan.