A backup on the same drive as your server install protects against accidental deletion or corruption. It does NOT protect against drive failure, ransomware, or "the building burned down." AASM v0.8.3 ships an optional SFTP off-site backup tier that uploads each backup ZIP to a remote server.

v0.8.2 fixed an SFTP failure-swallow bug (BUG-SftpFailureSwallow) - earlier builds reported scheduled-backup success even when the SFTP upload silently failed. v0.8.3 honestly reports failure with retry intent.

Prerequisites:

Local backups already configured (see Configuring Automated Backups).
An SFTP-capable remote host (your VPS, a NAS with SSH enabled, Backblaze B2 via rclone bridge, etc.).
SFTP credentials (host, port, username, password OR private key).

Step 1 - Open Backup and Restore

Server tab → Backup and Restore sub-tab. Scroll to the Off-Site / SFTP Backup section.

Backup and Restore sub-tab with SFTP section

Step 2 - Enable SFTP upload

Flip Enable SFTP backup tier on. The credential fields become editable.

Step 3 - Enter SFTP credentials

Fill in:

Host - SFTP server (e.g. backups.example.com)
Port - typically 22 (SFTP rides on SSH)
Username - the account on the remote
Auth method - password OR private key path
Remote path - where to put backups (e.g. /srv/ark-backups/island/)

SFTP password is stored encrypted in AASM's data dir. Viewer/dashboard Web UI roles cannot read it (v0.8.2 server-side redaction).

Step 4 - Set the local-vs-remote retention

Configure two retention windows:

Local retention - how many local backups to keep before pruning (e.g. last 24h).
Remote retention - how many remote backups to keep (e.g. last 7 days for daily snapshots).

Step 5 - Save and test with a manual backup

Click Confirm Saved, then trigger a manual backup via the Backup Now button. Watch the dashboard:

Local backup runs first (atomic ZIP write - v0.8.2 fix BUG-BackupZipAtomicWrite means no half-written archives).
SFTP upload kicks off after the local ZIP is verified.
Success snackbar fires only when BOTH tiers succeed. SFTP failures now correctly flag shouldRetry (v0.8.2 fix).

Step 6 - Verify on the remote

SSH into the remote and confirm the backup landed:

ssh user@backups.example.com "ls -lh /srv/ark-backups/island/"

The latest ZIP should be there with the same size as the local copy.