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Borg backups

Find more resources at borgbackup/community

Commands

  • borg create <repo>::<backup_name> /path/to/folder Create a backup
  • borg list <repo> List all the backups inside a repository
  • borg list <repo>::<backup_name> List the files inside a backup
  • borg --info check --verify-data <repo> Verify integrity
  • borg mount <repo> </path/to/mount/point> Mount a repo
  • borg delete <repo>::<backup_name> Remove a backup
  • borg delete <repo> Remove a repo (This will delete all data)

Init a repo

borg init --encryption=repokey /path/to/repository
borg init --encryption=keyfile /path/to/repository

repokey (default) will save the key inside the repository in the config file; keyfile will not. If you lose the key you lose access to the files. With repokey you can move the repository to another computer and it will work because the key is inside the config file.

To export the key use borg key export <repo> <filename> where <filename> is the file name of the exported key. Import it with borg key import <repo> <filename>

man borg-init

Do a backup

borg create <repo>::<backup_name> /path/to/folder
borg create backups::"dots $(date +'%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M')" /home/yu/.config
borg create -v --stats --progress --compression zlib backups::'Work-{now:%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M}' /mnt --exclude '/mnt/System\ Volume\ Information'

The name <backup_name> of the backup must be unique.

man borg-create

Export the key 

borg key export <repo> <filename>
borg key export --paper /path/to/repo repokey.borg

Remote backups

Init the repository 

# Remote repository (accesses a remote borg via ssh)
# keyfile: stores the (encrypted) key into ~/.config/borg/keys/
$ borg init --encryption=keyfile user@hostname:backup

Create a backup 

borg create user@10.0.0.1:/backups::documentation /path/to/folder
borg create server:/backups::projects /path/to/folder

pass(1) and borg

BORG_PASSCOMMAND='<command>' borg create <repo>::<backup_name> /path/to/folder
BORG_PASSCOMMAND='pass show borg-backups' borg create /backups::documentation /path/to/folder

Extract all the files from a backup

borg extract <repo>::<backup_name>
By default borg removes the first / so /mnt/hdd/folder/file.ext will be mnt/hdd/folder/file.ext and will be extracted in the folder where you run the command.

Extract a single file

borg extract <repo>::<backup_name> path/to/file

Example: 

## Create the backup
## Year (Y); month (m); day (d); hour (H); minute (M).
borg create backups::Weekly-{now:%Y-%m-%d} /home/yu/dots
## Extract one (1) file from the backup
borg extract backups::Weekly-2019-03-04 dots/.config/i3/config
## Same applies for folders
borg extract backups::Weekly-2019-03-04 dots/.config/borg

Remove old backups (prune)

Use --dry-run to see the result without executing it. 

# Keep all backups in the last 10 days, 4 additional end of week archives,
# and an end of month archive for every month:
borg prune -v --list --keep-within=10d --keep-weekly=6 --keep-monthly=-1 --prefix='{hostname}-' <repo>

man borg-prune

Benchmark

BORG_PASSPHRASE=<password> borg benchmark crud <repo> /path/to/somewhere
Results 
C-Z-BIG         508.33 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB all-zero files: 1.97s)
R-Z-BIG         495.32 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB all-zero files: 2.02s)
U-Z-BIG        3709.53 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB all-zero files: 0.27s)
D-Z-BIG       12992.62 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB all-zero files: 0.08s)
C-R-BIG         292.58 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB random files: 3.42s)
R-R-BIG         514.11 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB random files: 1.95s)
U-R-BIG        4226.89 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB random files: 0.24s)
D-R-BIG        2401.23 MB/s (10 * 100.00 MB random files: 0.42s)
C-Z-MEDIUM      668.84 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB all-zero files: 1.50s)
R-Z-MEDIUM      592.89 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB all-zero files: 1.69s)
U-Z-MEDIUM     4549.01 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB all-zero files: 0.22s)
D-Z-MEDIUM    12338.22 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB all-zero files: 0.08s)
C-R-MEDIUM      352.13 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB random files: 2.84s)
R-R-MEDIUM      597.51 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB random files: 1.67s)
U-R-MEDIUM     5353.34 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB random files: 0.19s)
D-R-MEDIUM     2760.41 MB/s (1000 * 1.00 MB random files: 0.36s)
C-Z-SMALL        73.76 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB all-zero files: 1.36s)
R-Z-SMALL       169.01 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB all-zero files: 0.59s)
U-Z-SMALL        83.71 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB all-zero files: 1.19s)
D-Z-SMALL       621.43 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB all-zero files: 0.16s)
C-R-SMALL        49.91 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB random files: 2.00s)
R-R-SMALL       172.88 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB random files: 0.58s)
U-R-SMALL        73.80 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB random files: 1.36s)
D-R-SMALL       183.45 MB/s (10000 * 10.00 kB random files: 0.55s)

UIs