Install the CLI

The walwarden CLI (walwarden-cli on npm, bin: walwarden) is the tool that performs restores on your machine. It pulls bytes from S3, verifies the manifest checksum, and pipes the dump to pg_restore. Install it before you need it.

System requirements

• Node.js 20 or later. Check with node --version.
• pg_restore on your PATH, matching the major version of your source database. Check with pg_restore --version. A version mismatch is the most common restore failure; see Troubleshooting.

One-time install (global)

npm install -g walwarden-cli

Verify:

walwarden --version

Run without installing (npx)

The dashboard's one-liner uses npx so you do not need a prior install:

WALWARDEN_TOKEN=<token> npx --yes walwarden-cli restore \
  --manifest <sha256> \
  --target '<your-target-dsn>' \
  --mode new_database

npx --yes downloads the latest published version on first run and caches it. If you prefer a pinned version, install globally with a version specifier:

npm install -g walwarden-cli@0.0.1

Matching pg_restore to your source database

pg_restore must be the same major version as the Postgres server that produced the dump. Mismatched versions produce the error:

pg_restore: error: aborting because of server version mismatch

How to get the right version:

macOS — use Homebrew:

brew install postgresql@16
# Then add /opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@16/bin to PATH

Debian / Ubuntu:

apt-get install postgresql-client-16

Other Linux — use the official PGDG apt or yum repositories at postgresql.org/download.

To check which version the source database is running, look at the "Server version" line on the walwarden dashboard database detail page, or run:

SELECT version();

against the source database directly.

AWS credentials for restore

The CLI does not need AWS_* environment variables. The presigned S3 URL embedded in the restore token gives the CLI direct, time-limited read access to your specific backup artifact. No AWS configuration is required on the restore machine.