Protect your servers without late night work. The automation creates daily snapshots for every VPS in your Contabo account and replaces any old one. It fits IT teams and solo admins who want simple, reliable backups.

On a schedule or on demand, it pulls the current time and formats a clean date stamp. It exchanges your Contabo client and user credentials for an access token, then lists all instances and processes each one. Unique request and trace IDs are generated for every API call to improve auditing. For each server it checks for an existing snapshot, deletes it if found, and creates a new snapshot named with the current date.

Setup needs your Contabo client ID, client secret, API user, and API password. After one successful test, expect a fresh snapshot at midnight with no manual effort and one clean restore point per server. This is ideal for small providers, labs, classrooms, and teams that want daily restore points without writing scripts or logging in every day.

• Daily schedule with a built in manual test option for safe dry runs
• Access token request to the Contabo auth endpoint using your client and user credentials
• Instance listing and per server processing using a split step
• Snapshot check with a clear decision path to delete old snapshots
• New snapshot creation with a timestamped name for easy restore points
• Unique x request id and x trace id added to every API request
• Date capture and formatting to keep snapshot names consistent
• Merge and set steps that carry instance and snapshot IDs through the flow

• Reduce manual backup work from 30 minutes to 2 minutes per day
• Automate 100 percent of nightly VPS snapshots across all servers
• Eliminate up to 90 percent of human errors from manual clicks
• Handle dozens or hundreds of servers with the same flow
• Connect Contabo and a UUID service for traceable API calls

1. Import the template into n8n: Create a new workflow in n8n > Click the three dots menu > Select 'Import from File' > Choose the downloaded JSON file.
2. You'll need accounts with Contabo and UUID Generator. See the Tools Required section above for links to create accounts with these services.
3. Open the node named Credential and enter your Contabo values for CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, API_USER, and API_PASSWORD. Save the node.
4. Double click the Authorization HTTP Request node. If a credential dropdown appears, click Create new credential and follow the on screen steps, or leave it as No Authentication since the request uses body fields and headers already set.
5. Check the Authorization node body and headers. Content Type must be application/x-www-form-urlencoded and the fields client_id, client_secret, username, password, and grant_type must be present.
6. Set your time zone in the get Date & Time and Formatted Date nodes so snapshot names match your local time. Use a clear format like YYYY MM DD.
7. Click Execute Workflow with the manual trigger to test. In the Authorization node output, confirm token_type and access_token are returned.
8. Run the test again and check the List instances node output to confirm your servers appear. If empty, verify your Contabo credentials in the Credential node.
9. Inspect the List snapshots node for each instance. If a snapshot exists, the flow will route to delete it and then create a fresh one. If none exist, it goes straight to creation.
10. Open the Whether snapshot there is no snapshot node and confirm the true and false paths match your policy. Default behavior keeps only one latest snapshot per instance.
11. Open the Schedule Trigger node and set it to midnight or your preferred time. Ensure the n8n server time zone matches your desired schedule.
12. After a full run, verify in your Contabo control panel that each instance shows a new snapshot with the current date. If you see any 401 errors, recheck client and user credentials. If rate limits occur, add a short wait between requests.