backup

why

backups should be simple and easy.

how

easily create immutable, trustless backups with revision history, compression, and file deduplication.

what

the index, tracked in git, contains filesystem metadata.
the index is a sorted tsv file of: path, tarball, hash, size, mode
for every line of metadata in the index, there is one and only one tarball containing a file with that hash.
duplicate files, by blake2b hash, are never stored.
the index is encrypted with git-remote-gcrypt.
the tarballs are split into chunks, compressed with lz4, then encrypted with gpg.
all remote storage is handled via rclone on any backend it supports.
the ignore file, tracked in git, contains one regex per line of file paths to ignore.
a clean restore will clone the git repo, checkout a revision, select file paths by regex, gather needed tarball names, fetch tarballs from storage, and extract the selected files.

usage

backup-add - scan the filesystem for changes.
backup-diff - inspect the uncommitted backup diff.
backup-ignore - if needed, edit the ignore regexes, then goto backup-add.
backup-commit - commit the backup diff to remote storage.
backup-find - search for files in the index by regex at revision.
backup-restore - restore files from remote storage by regex at revision.

dependencies

awk
bash
cat
git
git-remote-gcrypt
gpg
grep
lz4
python3
rclone

installation

put bin/ on $PATH

sudo mv bin/* /usr/local/bin

setup

add some environment variables to your bashrc:

export BACKUP_ROOT=~ - root directory to backup

export BACKUP_RCLONE_REMOTE=$REMOTE - a remote setup with rclone config

export BACKUP_DESTINATION=$BUCKET/backups/$(hostname) - where to rclone data to

export BACKUP_CHUNK_MEGABYTES=100 - approximate size of each tarball before compression

have a gpg key and a gpg.conf that looks like the following:

>> cat ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf

default-key YOUR@EMAIL.COM
default-recipient YOUR@EMAIL.COM

personal-cipher-preferences AES256
personal-digest-preferences SHA512
personal-compress-preferences Uncompressed
default-preference-list SHA512 AES256 Uncompressed
cert-digest-algo SHA512
s2k-cipher-algo AES256
s2k-digest-algo SHA512
s2k-mode 3
s2k-count 65011712
disable-cipher-algo 3DES
weak-digest SHA1
force-mdc

api

modify backup state:

backup-add - scan the filesystem for changes
backup-commit - commit the backup diff to remote storage
backup-ignore - edit the ignore file in $EDITOR
backup-reset - clear uncommited backup state

view backup state:

backup-additions-sizes - show large files in the uncommited backup diff
backup-additions - inspect the uncommited backup diff, additions only
backup-diff - inspect the uncommited backup diff
backup-find - find files by regex at revision
backup-index - view the backup index
backup-log - view the git log

restore backup content:

backup-restore - restore files from remote storage by regex at revision

test

export BACKUP_TEST_RCLONE_REMOTE=$REMOTE
export BACKUP_TEST_DESTINATION=$BUCKET/test
tox

nathants/backup