Adding a Klipper config backup script

This script is meant to be set up as a service to backup your klipper config files to a GitHub repository.

If you have any questions, bug reports or requests feel free to DM me on Discord: Low_Frequency#0831

How does it work?

This script runs when your Pi starts. It waits for network connection and then pushes the config files to GitHub, if you have modified them since the last commit. Every action is logged and the output gets sent to the terminal. This way you always know what fails, or has failed in the past.

It even has log rotation implemented, so it doesn't eat up the precious space for your gcodes 😉

Setup

There are two ways to set this script up. The manual way, or completely automated. Everything you have to do is copy this command and type in the information the script asks for:

wget -qO setup.sh "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Low-Frequency/klipper_backup_script/main/setup.sh" && chmod +x setup.sh && ./setup.sh

The manual way is described in the following sections.

Adding an SSH key to your GitHub account

Connect to your Raspberry Pi via SSH and generate a key pair using the following command:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "<mail_of_your_github_account>"

Save the key pair under /home/pi/.ssh/github_id_rsa when it promts you to save it.

When you've created the key pair, add the private key to the ssh-agent:

The following command should tell you the PID under which the ssh-agent runs:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

If the command was successfully run, add the private key with this:

ssh-add ~/.ssh/github_id_rsa

Copy the output of cat ~/.ssh/github_id_rsa.pub On GitHub navigate to your profile -> settings -> SSH and GPG keys, add a new key and paste the copied key.

Before we continue test the SSH connection to GitHub:

ssh -T git@github.com

If the test was successful, you need to add the key permanently. To do this create a config file in the .ssh folder:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Add in this line:

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/github_id_rsa

After that you need to set the correct permissions for the config file and you're done with the SSH configuration:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config

Setting up the repo

Initialize the klipper_config folder as your repo and push your config for the first time:

cd ~/klipper_config/
git init
git remote add origin <Your-GitHub-Repo-URL>
git add .
git commit -m "my first backup"
git push -u origin master

After that switch over to SSH:

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:<username>/<your-repository>.git
git remote add origin git@github.com:<username>/<your-repository>.git
git push -u origin main

And set your username and email:

git config --global user.email "<mail_of_your_github_account>"
git config --global user.name "<username>"

Setting up the script

Make a folder for your scripts and a folder for the logs:

mkdir ~/scripts
mkdir ~/git_log

After that you can either clone this repository to ~/scripts, or copy and paste the contents of the script. I recommend cloning the repo since it's less work for you 😉

Cloning the repo:

git -C /home/pi/scripts clone https://github.com/Low-Frequency/klipper_backup_script

After you copied the script, you have to make it executable:

chmod +x ~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/klipper_config_git_backup.sh

At this point you're able to push your klipper config with the script. You can execute it with this command:

~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/klipper_config_git_backup.sh

Setting up the automation

To automate the backup of you klipper config, we're setting up a service that executes the script after a reboot. To do this, you have to create a service file in /etc/systemd/system.

If you cloned the repo, the setup is as easy as executing this command:

sudo mv ~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/gitbackup.service /etc/systemd/system/gitbackup.service

If you want to go the copy/paste route:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/gitbackup.service

Then paste the contents of the service file and save it.

After creating the service file, you have to enable the service and start it:

sudo systemctl enable gitbackup.service
sudo systemctl start gitbackup.service

Now the changes you make in your config will be pushed to GitHub everytime you power on your printer. When your config gets pushed to GitHub, the commit message will include the date (YYYY-MM-DD) of the backup. If something fails, you can view the log with the following command:

cat ~/git_log/<date>

With this you should get an idea of where the problem occurred.

Customizing log rotation

You can customzie how long the log files will be stored, or even turn off log rotation completely.

To customize this, open the script:

nano ~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/klipper_config_git_backup.sh

Notice this line:

DEL=$((($(date '+%s') - $(date -d '6 months ago' '+%s')) / 86400))

This calculates the number of days the logs live in the git_log folder. Default is 6 months.

To customize this just change the '6 months ago' to a value of your choice, for example '1 month ago' for deleting the logs after one month, or even '12 months ago' to delete the files after one year.

If you want to disable the log rotation, just comment the last line of the script (add a # in front).

Further implementation

If you have the G-code Shell command extension instealled, you can add the script to your macros in your printer.cfg. Just add the following lines to your macro section:

[gcode_shell_command backup_cfg]
command: sh /home/pi/scripts/klipper_backup_script/klipper_config_git_backup.sh
timeout: 30.
verbose: True

[gcode_macro BACKUP_CFG]
gcode:
    RUN_SHELL_COMMAND CMD=backup_cfg

Restoring the config

If you need to restore your config files, you have two options:

Restoring to your existing installation with the git repo already configured
Restoring to a new installation

Just execute the script and follow the instructions:

~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/restore_config.sh

Uninstalling the automatic backup utility

I don't know why you don't want to use automatic backups, but I might as well provide you with an easy way ro revert all the changes the scripts have done. Just execute this command:

~/scripts/klipper_backup_script/uninstall.sh

yoshymura/klipper_backup_script