6. Backups, updates and settings

Backups#

1. In System, choose a backup password and write it down somewhere safe: without it, a backup cannot be restored.
2. Every night at 01:30, Warda makes an encrypted backup of your accounts, household, devices, rules and settings. The browsing history is never in it.
3. Plug a USB drive (formatted FAT or exFAT) into the box: every night at 01:45, the backups are copied to it, in the folder warda-backups.

Download a backup now gives a copy at any time. To restore: Restore a backup in System, or on the installation page of a new box. A restore replaces every account: it is kept for the administrators (with Warda Business, also for the role Backups and restore).

On another box. A backup brings back your accounts, your settings and the name of the box, but not the plan of your customer area: the plan stays with the box that has it. Restored on the same box, nothing changes. Restored on a new box, or after a reinstall, confirm it in the customer area: see When a box is replaced below.

Updates#

Installed with the package or the Raspberry Pi image, Warda looks for a new version every 6 hours and updates itself once a night between 02:00 and 05:00, only with versions signed by its publisher. If a new version does not start, the old one comes back by itself. In System, you can turn this automatic update off, check or update at once. The Raspberry Pi image also installs the security fixes of its system.

Updating to Warda 0.7.10: three things to know.

• No way back to the previous version once 0.7.10 has started: it rebuilds the list of the devices in its database, which 0.7.9 can no longer open. The automatic return to the old version only works when 0.7.10 fails before that.
• A banner asks an administrator to accept the terms of use again (version of 2026-10-03: the anonymous statistics now also tell the plan of the box). Nothing is blocked meanwhile, and the anonymous statistics go on as before, without the plan, until the new version is accepted (they are held only on a box where no version of the terms was ever accepted).
• A phone that was shown as Android phone may show Private address for a while: Warda forgets that guess and tells its system again, from better clues.

Updating to Warda 0.8.2: what changes.

• A banner asks an administrator to accept the terms of use again (version of 2026-10-13: they add the reputation of the domains). Until then the collective base, the check of the exposure from outside, the checks of the data breaches and the reputation of the domains wait; everything else works.
• No way back to 0.8.0 once 0.8.2 has started.
• The Reputation of the domains is on; the blocking for everyone of the new suspicious domains stays off on your box until you turn it on (Protection settings; an update after 0.8.4 turns it on once, unless you had turned it off).
• Outside the home, warda and the names of your network no longer answer.
• With two boxes in a pair, update both.

Updating from Warda 0.8.4: what changes.

• A banner asks an administrator to accept the terms of use again (version of 2026-10-14: the look-alike names reported to the analysis service of Warda). Until then what they list waits; everything else works.
• No way back to 0.8.4 once the new version has started (its database changes).
• Block for everyone the suspicious domains registered less than 14 days ago is turned on, unless an administrator had turned it off.
• The page Protections is now Protection settings, and DHCP is DHCP server.
• With two boxes in a pair, update both.

On the Raspberry Pi image only, System also has a card System updates: the updates of the system of the box waiting (each package with its installed and new version), and the date of the last check. Warda looks every 6 hours; Check now looks at once and Install installs them all (it can take several minutes, Warda keeps filtering meanwhile). When an update needs it, the card says Restart needed: restart with Restart the box when it suits you, nothing restarts by itself.

With Docker, Warda installs nothing. Every 6 hours it checks for a new version signed by its publisher and shows it in System (Check every 6 hours for a new version, on by default; Check now checks at once). To install it, run in the folder of your compose file:

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

The nightly copy to a USB drive is not done in Docker.

Settings#

The Settings page changes learning, resolvers, the names of your local network (printer, NAS: give the zone and the address of the router) and how long the journal is kept. Saving restarts Warda: a few seconds without name resolution.

If the hours or the reports are shifted, choose your Time zone on the same page: a box in a container is often on UTC.

The mail server. Warda sends e-mails (the summary of the week) only through a mail server you give it: yours, your provider's or your company's. In Settings, card Mail server: the SMTP server, the Encryption (STARTTLS (port 587) or TLS from the start (port 465): never in clear), the Port, the Account (optional) and its Password, and the Sender. Send a test message to an address, then Send the test (5 tests in 10 minutes at most). The password is kept on the box and in its encrypted backups, never shown again nor written in the log; nothing goes through the online service of Warda. Remove the server to stop sending.

Administration → Scheduled tasks shows what Warda does by itself (lists, backups, network scans, learning…): when each task last ran, whether it went well, and when it runs next. A task that does not concern your box is not listed (the second box of a pair, the sites, a directory, a backup without a password, the breaches without an address, the school holidays without a region, the collective base when it is off…), and once subscriptions open, neither are the tasks of a function your plan does not include. Among the tasks: Device makers (once a day), Alerts watched (only while an alert is kept under watch), Unusual days (every hour) and Summary of the week (every Monday from 06:00).

The country of your installation. The card Identifier of the installation of Settings shows its country and where it comes from: your public address, told by the online service of Warda (the usual case), or your time zone until the service answers. If it is wrong, choose the right Country: it is then kept as is. Find it automatically gives the choice back to Warda.

Maintenance#

At the bottom of System, when something behaves strangely:

• Restart the DNS resolver empties the memory of the answers and starts the connections to the upstream servers again, without restarting Warda: useful after a change of your Internet box, or when a site answers with an old address.
• Empty the network table forgets the machines found by the network scan; your devices, their person or group and the names you gave them stay. The next scan finds the machines again.
• Empty the logs deletes the list of the names asked; the statistics, the reports and the settings stay.

Emptying asks your password again. The same page shows the terms of use you accepted and the anonymous daily statistics, with exactly what they send, and turns them off in one click. A box installed before the terms of use shows a banner to the administrators until one of them accepts them; so do new terms (the latest, of 2026-10-14, add the look-alike names reported to the analysis service of Warda): Read and accept leads to System, and nothing is blocked meanwhile; what the new terms add waits for them.

Under the anonymous statistics, System shows the last send (with its error if it failed: Warda tries again within 30 minutes) and the next one planned. They go out a few minutes after each start of Warda, then once in the morning and once in the afternoon (UTC), at random times; your box is still counted only once a day. Administration → Scheduled tasks lists them as Anonymous statistics. From Warda 0.7.10 they also tell the plan of the box (Plan sent: Free, Subscription or Warda Business), once the new terms are accepted. It comes only from what the customer area signs for the box: nothing on the box can change it.

When Warda restarts (from Warda 0.7.10). What you see is kept: the counts of the dashboard, the charts, the reports, the last analysis of the learning and the last hour of the health of the box are the same after a restart, an update or a power cut. Two old causes of "everything back to zero" are fixed: a change of the time zone of the box, and a box that starts with a wrong date (a Raspberry Pi has no clock of its own). After a long stop (a box switched off for weeks), what is too old is removed little by little, one day of history for each hour Warda runs, never all at once.

What can still be lost:

• after a power cut or a forced stop: 5 minutes at most of the journal and of the charts;
• after a backup is restored: the journal and the statistics, which a backup never holds;
• on the second box of a pair of high availability: what its journal and its statistics hold beyond their last 48 hours, each time the configuration of the primary changes.

Warda restarts by itself in these cases: an update (and the return to the previous version when the new one does not start), the first certificate of the encrypted DNS, a setting that needs it (Settings, the time zone, the DHCP server), a backup restored, and when it crashes or stops answering (the system starts it again within seconds). Each start is written in Administration → Activity log with its reason, and marked on the chart of the dashboard. To read more on the box itself: chapter 7.

Plans and subscription#

Administration → Subscription shows the three plans (Free, Subscription, Warda Business), what each gives and what is coming. The box activates nothing itself: each plan has a link to the customer area of Warda, which opens in a new tab: Create my customer area (Free), Subscribe (Subscription), Sign up (Warda Business, which also keeps Contact us by e-mail). Once your plan is taken there, link the box to your account in Administration → Customer area (below).

Until subscriptions open, every function is open to everyone, whatever the plan. Once subscriptions open, the pages of a function your plan does not include are left out of the menus (not shown locked), and the box refuses them itself. What only ends or removes something stays possible (end the pause of a person, leave a pair, remove a mail server…), so that a plan that ends never leaves the box stuck. When the subscription ends, the hours of Internet stop applying, kept for its return.

Customer area#

The customer area, account.warda-dns.com, is your account outside the box: your boxes, your plan and, for a company, the users, the sites and the pairs of high availability of Warda Business. Linking a box is optional and sends nothing of your network, only the key of the box. In Warda it has a page of its own, Customer area, in the Administration menu after Subscription (before Warda 0.7.8 it was a zone of the System page).

1. Create your account at account.warda-dns.com (e-mail and password; turn on the second factor).
2. In Warda, open Administration → Customer area and, in the card Link to an account, click Link this box: a code WL-XXXX-XXXX appears, valid 15 minutes, once; the card shows the time it has left.
3. Click Open the customer area (or go to My boxes → Add a box), sign in to your account, type the code and give the box a name.

A code only works in the customer area, with your account signed in: alone, it gives access to nothing. New code only replaces the code shown: it never unlinks the box nor changes its plan.

Once the code is typed in the customer area, the box learns it at its next renewal (once a day), or at once with Renew now: the card This box then says Linked and shows the Plan of your account, Valid until (14 days ahead, renewed every day by itself) and Last renewal. If the online service of Warda does not answer, the box keeps its plan and says why under Last renewal. With Warda Business and high availability, link both boxes of the pair to the same account: the card says Pair validated with the other box.

Unlink, in the card Unlink from the account, takes the box out of its account: its plan goes back to free (everything stays open until subscriptions open). Warda asks again for the password of your account on the box (the one you sign in to Warda with, not the one of the customer area): a session left open is not enough. The subscription you took stays on your account, in the customer area: to link the box again, ask a new code and type it under My boxes → Add a box; the box gets its plan back at once, without asking anyone.

What your account offers at account.warda-dns.com, from Warda 0.7.10: Plan (your plan and the prices; a gift of free months from Warda shows there, with its end date), Payment (your billing details; nothing is charged until subscriptions open), Invoices (none is issued until subscriptions open) and Account (your name, the language, a change of e-mail address confirmed, signed in to your account, by a link sent to the new address, the download of your data, the deletion of the account).

Until subscriptions open, every function stays open on every box whatever the plan, and a plan chosen in the customer area costs nothing.

One subscription, one box. A Subscription covers one box. High availability (a pair of boxes) is part of Warda Business, which covers every box of the account; until subscriptions open, the other box of a pair is included in a Subscription too. A second box linked to the same account stays on the free plan: when you link it, the customer area asks whether to move the plan to it or to link it without the plan. Later, Use the plan on this box, on the page of a box in the customer area, moves the plan; the box that gives it up goes back to the free plan within a day.

When a box is replaced (a broken box, new hardware, a reinstall):

1. Restore the backup of the old box on the new one (see Backups above).
2. On the new box, the page Customer area says Waiting for your confirmation: the box has its name and its settings, and is on the free plan for now (everything stays open until subscriptions open).
3. In the customer area, open the page of the box and click Make this the box. Or, on the new box, ask a code in the card Link to an account and type it under My boxes → Add a box.
4. On the new box, click Renew now (or wait up to an hour): it has the plan again. The old box, if it is ever switched on again, goes to the free plan.

Restored on the same box, there is nothing to do. If the customer area tells you (on the page of a box, or by e-mail) that a box you do not know asks to take over your plan, do nothing: the box in place keeps it.

Limits. The box that has your plan can change 3 times in 30 days (a box chosen, the plan moved, a box linked again soon after it was unlinked); beyond, write to [email protected]. If several boxes shared one Subscription before Warda 0.8.0, the others keep the plan for 90 days as a courtesy: the page Customer area of each box says until when. After that date, choose in the customer area which box keeps the plan.

If the page says The same key is used by another box, two copies of the same box are running (a copy of its card, for instance): keep one, switch the other off and, if the one you keep is the refused one, choose Put the subscription on this box for it in the customer area.