diff --git a/apiserver/apiserver/api/management/commands/set_backup_path.py b/apiserver/apiserver/api/management/commands/set_backup_path.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ab1c2c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apiserver/apiserver/api/management/commands/set_backup_path.py
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError
+from django.core.cache import cache
+
+class Command(BaseCommand):
+    help = 'Record where the last backup was saved.'
+
+    def add_arguments(self, parser):
+        parser.add_argument('backup_path', type=str)
+
+
+    def handle(self, *args, **options):
+        backup_path = options['backup_path']
+        cache.set('backup_path', backup_path)
+        self.stdout.write('Set backup path to: ' + backup_path)
+
diff --git a/apiserver/create_backup.sh b/apiserver/create_backup.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..bca5dad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apiserver/create_backup.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# be safe
+set -euf -o pipefail
+
+
+uuid="`cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid`"
+date="`date -I`"
+
+api_folder="/opt/spaceport/apiserver"
+data_folder="/opt/spaceport/apiserver/data"
+backup_folder="/opt/spaceport/apiserver/backups"
+
+file_name="spaceport-backup-${date}.tar.gz"
+path_name="${backup_folder}/${uuid}"
+full_name="${path_name}/${file_name}"
+
+mkdir "${path_name}"
+tar -czf "${full_name}" --directory "${api_folder}" data/
+
+echo "Wrote backup to: ${uuid}/${file_name}"
+
+/opt/spaceport/apiserver/env/bin/python \
+	/opt/spaceport/apiserver/manage.py \
+	set_backup_path	"${uuid}/${file_name}"
+
+# test these carefully
+find "${backup_folder}" -mindepth 1 -type d -print
+#find "${backup_folder}" -mindepth 1 -type d -ctime +14 -print
+#find "${backup_folder}" -mindepth 1 -type d -ctime +14 -exec rm -r {} \;