The Neo4j backups are fully functional databases. To use a backup, all you need to do replace your database folder with the backup. Just make sure the database isn’t running while replacing the folder.
To restore from backup in a clustered environment, follow these steps:
- Shut down all instances in the cluster.
- Restore the backup to the individual database folders.
- Restart the instances.
Make sure there’s at least one neostore.transaction.db.nnn file included in the backup. If there isn’t, start up one instance in stand-alone mode first, and issue one updating transaction against it (any sort of write, like creating a node). Then copy that database to all instances in your cluster.