You can also access the rqlite API directly, via a HTTP `GET` request to the endpoint `/db/backup`. For example, using `curl`, and assuming the node is listening on `localhost:4001`, you could retrieve a backup as follows:
In either case the generated file file can then be used to restore a node (or cluster) using the [restore API](https://github.com/rqlite/rqlite/blob/master/DOC/RESTORE_FROM_SQLITE.md).
## Generating a SQL text dump
You can dump the database in SQL text format via the CLI as follows:
The isolation offered by backups is `READ COMMITTED`. This means that any changes due to transactions to the database, that take place during the backup, will be reflected immediately once the transaction is committed, but not before.