Is there a way to have an self-hosted instance that syncs data to hosted instance (so if self-hosted goes down, we switch to use hosted)?

[kibblesnbitswardens]

Hello,

Is there a way to have an self-hosted Bitwarden system that syncs data to hosted instance (so if self-hosted system goes down for any reason, we toggle users to use hosted instance)?

Or a way to have (2) self-hosted Bitwarden systems that sync data with each other so that if one fails or becomes unavailable, the other takes over automatically or you manually point users to the other system that is up?

Thank you in advance for info.

-Max

[cksapp (Kent)]

Hi @kibblesnbitswardens and welcome to the community,

@kibblesnbitswardens

Is there a way to have an self-hosted Bitwarden system that syncs data to hosted instance (so if self-hosted system goes down for any reason, we toggle users to use hosted instance)?

There is an older discussion on the topic of a “hot-spare” of sorts here, though I am not sure if any of the discussed workaround “syncing” methods ever came to any fruition. Though as mentioned there would not be any way to sync user vault data, and the best you could do would be to possibly sync an Organization between self-hosted and Bitwarden’s cloud SaaS.

Self-hosted hot standby

So far my company is absolutely fine with Bitwarden availability. I mean, more than a year of intensive usage, and zero perceived downtime ? That’s a solid score among the few SaaS providers that we use today. However, as a risk manager, I must take every situation in account. Due to the limited features of offline mode, if the web vault ends up down for a while, we might want to switch to an emergency mode with a self-hosted instance having a not-too-old version of collections. If I understan…

There is as well as a related community feature request on the topic you may go vote on and voice your support for this to be added.

Redundant Server Backup

Currently, there is no easy way to redundantly backup a Bitwarden homeserver to the Bitwarden’s cloud servers. Having this option would prevent permanent loss of passwords in case one’s homeserver goes down. (Other topics discuss local backups for homeservers, but this has its own pros and cons.)

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@kibblesnbitswardens

Or a way to have (2) self-hosted Bitwarden systems that sync data with each other so that if one fails or becomes unavailable, the other takes over automatically or you manually point users to the other system that is up?

Alternatively this portion is something can can be done as I understand, which would allow for redundancy between your Organization as well as the individual’s vault items. You would want to have multiple self-hosted instances or something similar to a kubernetes cluster or docker swarm and achieve this through some type High-Availability, or HA setup.
You can find some discussion on the topic here

Bitwarden on-premise server replication

Hello everyone! Recently I started using Bitwarden. I set up a bitwarden on-premise and it’s working well. I wonder whether I could make another one with replicated data in case something bad will happen with the main. So it should be synchronized with the first one and I’ll be able to quickly switch to reserve? I’ve tried Migration from host-to-host. That quite ok, but it’s more like moving from one to another, and I’m looking to have them both available in the same time being synchronized.

[kibblesnbitswardens]

Thank you very much to everyone for the info they shared, I really appreciate it.
Especially the mention of the offline option.
I was able to read the details of Install and Deploy - Offline (Linux). So I see the details of how to be in offline mode if my self-hosted server was unavailable.

I’ve been searching on the site to read more about the ability to use the Bitwarden app in offline mode if the hosted service was unavailable.

Here’s what I can find:

Onboarding and Succession | Bitwarden Help Center

Offline devices cache a read-only copy of vault data, including organizational vault data. If you anticipate malicious exploitation of this, credentials the member had access
to should be updated when you remove them from the organization.

Would anyone be able to point me to any other articles discussing that (use the Bitwarden app in offline mode if the hosted service was unavailable)?

Thank you in advance for info.

-Max