Storage, Limits, And Retention

Storage Model

Peek keeps metadata in SQLite and upload bytes in the configured object store.

SQLite contains accounts, sessions, tokens, upload metadata, comments, visits, settings, audit logs, and migrations. Object storage contains the uploaded HTML bytes.

Changing the storage backend between file and s3 requires a restart because it changes where peekd reads and writes upload bytes.

File Storage

File storage is the default. Uploaded HTML is stored under the data directory, next to peek.db and secret.key.

Use file storage when one VM or one container volume is the operational source of truth. Back up the whole data directory for the simplest recovery story.

peekd --data /var/lib/peek --storage file

S3-Compatible Storage

S3 storage writes upload bytes to uploads/<object-name> inside the configured bucket. It works with S3-compatible services that support signed PUT, GET, and DELETE object requests.

Peek Settings Storage tab with S3 selected and endpoint, bucket, region, access key, and secret fields visible — The dashboard can update S3 connection settings, but backend selection takes effect after restart.

Startup environment:

PEEK_STORAGE=s3
PEEK_S3_ENDPOINT=https://example-account.r2.cloudflarestorage.com
PEEK_S3_BUCKET=peek
PEEK_S3_REGION=auto
PEEK_S3_ACCESS_KEY=...
PEEK_S3_SECRET_KEY=...

Private, loopback, link-local, metadata, and plain HTTP endpoints are blocked by default to reduce SSRF risk. Use PEEK_S3_ALLOW_PRIVATE_ENDPOINT=true only for explicit private deployments such as local MinIO or a controlled internal object store.

After changing S3 credentials or endpoint settings, run a smoke upload and open the resulting page.

Limits And Quotas

Limits protect the server from accidental growth and runaway automation.

Peek Settings Limits tab showing upload size, total storage, per-owner quotas, and retention controls — Limits are runtime settings: save them from the dashboard and they apply to future uploads and cleanup.

Limit	Meaning
Max upload size	Maximum size for one HTML upload. Must be greater than zero.
Total storage limit	Cumulative upload storage across the server. `0` means unlimited.
Max uploads per owner	Count limit per account or token owner. `0` means unlimited.
Storage per owner	Byte limit per account or token owner. `0` means unlimited.

The dashboard shows byte-based limits in MB. The API stores the underlying runtime setting in bytes.

Retention

Retention deletes uploads older than the configured number of days. 0 disables automatic cleanup.

Use retention for policy, not as a substitute for backups. If your company treats generated reports as temporary review artifacts, set retention to match that expectation.

Backups

For SQLite consistency while the server is running:

PEEK_DATA=/var/lib/peek peekd backup /backups/peek-$(date +%F).db

With file storage, also back up the upload directory and secret.key. With S3 storage, the SQLite backup does not contain object bytes; back up or lifecycle-manage the bucket according to the same recovery policy.

Before upgrading storage, auth, retention, or database-sensitive releases, take a backup and test the new binary against a copy of the data directory.