borgbackup is cool and easy to use. But we all end up writing bash scripts for creating/listing/pruning/checking/... backups. borgctl is a borg wrapper that uses yaml configuration files to make life a bit easier.
I don't want to write a bash script on every server to make backups. I don't want to have an extra script for listing/pruning backups. I want to backup to multiple storage backends. I backup different things to different remote backends (money constraint). I don't want to store my borg passphrase on disk. I also don't want to enter it for every backend. I want to make backups in append-only-mode. To prune/compact backups, Yubikey authentication is mandatory. I want to see when my last backup was done (monitoring). I want usability and easy deployment.
Now, I make backups with
borgctl -c backend1-append.yml -c backend2-append.yml -c backend3-append.yml create
I prune/compact backups with (needs Yubikey)
borgctl -c backend1-full.yml -c backend2-full.yml -c backend3-full.yml --cron
My i3 status bar shows a red B:7d if my last backup is 7 days old. On some servers, I like to create, prune and compact backups by just using borgctl --cron. There is also borgmagic, but it does not handle all my use cases (to admit: I first reinvented the wheel and then stumbled across borgmatic. I also thought it just takes a day to write a small python script ...)
borgctl create, borgctl list, borgctl prune, ...borg create in append-only-mode and borg prune/compact with a Yubikey)ask as passphrase in the config file). Re-use the entered password for other remote storage backends (you don't have to re-enter it again)borgctl --cron (like create + prune + compact, commands can be specified in the config file)
kmille@linbox:~ borgctl --help
usage: borgctl [-h] [-l [LIST]] [-d] [-s] [-a] [-c CONFIG] [--cron] [-p] [--version] {break-lock,check,compact,config,create,delete,diff,extract,export-tar,import-tar,info,init,key,list,mount,prune,rename,umount,upgrade,with-lock} ...
borgctl is a simple borgbackup wrapper. Running version 0.4.9.
The working directory is /etc/borgctl/ for root or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/borgctl or ~/.config/borgctl for non-root users.
The log directory is /var/log/borgctl/ for root or $XDG_STATE_HOME/borgctl or ~/.local/state/borgctl for non-root users.
positional arguments:
{break-lock,check,compact,config,create,delete,diff,extract,export-tar,import-tar,info,init,key,list,mount,prune,rename,umount,upgrade,with-lock}
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-l [LIST], --list [LIST]
list existing borgctl config files in /home/kmille/.config/borgctl
-d, --generate-default-config
write default config to /home/kmille/.config/borgctl/default.yml or prints it to stdout if the file already exists
-s, --generate-ssh-key
write a new ed25519 ssh key to ~/.ssh/borg_$config and update the config file
-a, --generate-authorized-keys
print the authorized_keys entry. It also shows the retricted entry
-c CONFIG, --config CONFIG
specify the config file to use. Defaults to default.yml. You can specify multiple config files with -c default.yml -c local-disk.yml. If the config file contains a /, then a relative/absolute path is asumed. If not, /home/kmille/.config/borgctl/$config will be used
--cron run multiple borg commands in a row. The commands to run are specified in the config file (cron_commands)
-p, --generate-passphrase
generate a diceware like passphrase
--version show version and exit
You can find the latest release on the Github Release page. There are different ways to get borgctl up and running.
pip install borgctl
The source and binary package can also be found on the Release page (*.whl and *.tar.gz)
Install the latest package with:
cd /tmp
export LATEST_RELEASE=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/kmille/borgctl/tags | jq -r '.[0].name')
wget "https://github.com/kmille/borgctl/releases/download/$LATEST_RELEASE/borgctl_$LATEST_RELEASE-1_amd64.deb"
apt install ./borgctl*.deb
rm ./borgctl*.deb
The deb package should work on all Debian based distros. It is created by create-deb-package.sh. It requires borgbackup and python3-ruamel.yaml as dependencies.
yay borgctl
You can also download borgctl-*any.pkg.tar.zst and install it with pacman -U.
borgctl uses config files. If you run borgctl without specifying a config file, it expects a default.yml in the config directory. You can specify one or more config files with -c/--config. If the config file contains a /, the config file is interpreted as relative/absolute path. There is also a logging configuration (logging.conf) stored, which is used by borg and borgctl itself.
Default config location for root user: /etc/borgctl
Default config location for non-root users: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/borgctl or ~/.config/borgctl
The output of borg and borgctl will be written to borg.log. The file gets logrotated automatically.
/var/log/borgctl/$XDG_STATE_HOME/borgctl or ~/.local/state/borgctlThe state files are also written to the log directory. You can use borgctl --list to list all config files.
For example:
kmille@linbox:~ sudo borgctl --list
backend1-append.yml
...
kmille@linbox:~ sudo borgctl list
2024-01-09 10:37:17,967 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
kmille@linbox:~ sudo borgctl -c backend1-append.yml list
2024-01-09 10:37:55,148 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/backend1-append.yml
kmille@linbox:/etc sudo borgctl -c borgctl/backend1-append.yml list
2024-01-09 10:38:47,498 INFO Using config file borgctl/backend1-append.yml
Default configuration file generated by borgclt --generate-default-config:
---
repository: ""
ssh_key: ""
prefix: ""
passphrase: ""
mount_point: "/mnt"
borg_create_backup_dirs:
- "/"
borg_create_excludes:
- ".cache"
borg_create_arguments:
- "--one-file-system"
- "--compression=lz4"
borg_prune_arguments:
- "--keep-last 10"
- "--dry-run"
cron_commands:
- "create"
- "prune"
- "compact"
state_commands:
- "create"
- "prune"
# https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage/general.html#environment-variables
envs:
"BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK": "yes"
borg_binary: "/usr/bin/borg"
borgctl needs a configuration file. If you run it without specifying one, a default.yml in the default config location is expected to exist. If you run it and there is no default.yml, you can use --generate-default-config to create one:
root@linbox:~ borgctl list
2023-12-26 10:58:31,564 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 10:58:31,564 ERROR Could not load config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
Please use --generate-default-config to create a default config
root@linbox:~ borgctl --generate-default-config
2023-12-26 10:59:28,107 INFO Please make a backup of the passphrase!
2023-12-26 10:59:28,112 INFO Successfully wrote config file to /etc/borgctl/default.yml
/etc/borgctl/default.yml is based on the default config file and gets new diceware-like password for the borg passphrase . Also the hostname is set as borg prefix. It's crucial to make a backup of the passphrase!
root@linbox:~ borgctl --generate-ssh-key
2023-12-26 11:06:12,784 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:06:12,785 INFO Running ['ssh-keygen', '-t', 'ed25519', '-N', '', '-q', '-f', '/root/.ssh/borg_default', '-C', 'kmille_borg_default@linbox']
2023-12-26 11:06:12,794 INFO Successfully created ssh key /root/.ssh/borg_default
2023-12-26 11:06:12,805 INFO Updated ssh_key in /etc/borgctl/default.yml
root@linbox:~ cat /root/.ssh/borg_default.pub
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAINpVZZjIAzeyGq0oLKVeLzEECoe7RXg6YpAcPIsakboF kmille_borg_default@linbox
If you specify a ssh key in the config file, it will be used as output file (if it does not exist). If not, the default name for the ssh key is $currentUsername_borg_$configPrefix.
root@linbox:~ borgctl --generate-authorized_keys
2023-12-26 11:07:47,549 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:07:47,551 INFO Using ssh key /root/.ssh/borg_default.pub from config file
2023-12-26 11:07:47,551 INFO Add this line to authorized_keys:
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAINpVZZjIAzeyGq0oLKVeLzEECoe7RXg6YpAcPIsakboF kmille_borg_default@linbox
2023-12-26 11:07:47,551 INFO Use this line for restricted access:
command="borg serve --restrict-to-path /opt/test-backup",restrict ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAINpVZZjIAzeyGq0oLKVeLzEECoe7RXg6YpAcPIsakboF kmille_borg_default@linbox
2023-12-26 11:07:47,553 INFO Or this all-in-one command:
echo -e 'command="borg serve --restrict-to-path /opt/test-backup",restrict ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAINpVZZjIAzeyGq0oLKVeLzEECoe7RXg6YpAcPIsakboF kmille_borg_default@linbox\n' | ssh backup-host1 'cat >> /home/backuper/.ssh/authorized_keys'
root@linbox:~ borgctl --list
backend1-append.yml
backend2-append.yml
backend1-full.yml
backend2-full.yml
root@linbox:~ borgctl --list full
backend1-full.yml
backend2-full.yml
Please update the config file (what to backup (borg_create_backup_dirs and borg_create_excludes and where to backup (repository)). Then you can create your first backup:
root@linbox:~ borgctl create
2023-12-26 11:11:35,197 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:11:35,199 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose create --progress --stats --one-file-system --compression=lz4 --exclude=.cache ::linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35 /usr/bin
2023-12-26 11:11:35,718 INFO Creating archive at "/root/borg-repo::linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35"
2023-12-26 11:12:07,934 INFO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2023-12-26 11:12:07,935 INFO Repository: /root/borg-repo
2023-12-26 11:12:07,936 INFO Archive name: linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35
2023-12-26 11:12:07,937 INFO Archive fingerprint: 079e9c226455ff1b816be986bf49029c3cdf28ec04e9f6bf2d387ea9a4f24d87
2023-12-26 11:12:07,937 INFO Time (start): Tue, 2023-12-26 11:11:35
2023-12-26 11:12:07,938 INFO Time (end): Tue, 2023-12-26 11:12:06
2023-12-26 11:12:07,938 INFO Duration: 31.04 seconds
2023-12-26 11:12:07,939 INFO Number of files: 3869
2023-12-26 11:12:07,940 INFO Utilization of max. archive size: 0%
2023-12-26 11:12:07,940 INFO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2023-12-26 11:12:07,941 INFO Original size Compressed size Deduplicated size
2023-12-26 11:12:07,942 INFO This archive: 1.55 GB 777.29 MB 777.13 MB
2023-12-26 11:12:07,942 INFO All archives: 1.55 GB 777.29 MB 777.43 MB
2023-12-26 11:12:07,943 INFO
2023-12-26 11:12:07,943 INFO Unique chunks Total chunks
2023-12-26 11:12:07,944 INFO Chunk index: 4310 4322
2023-12-26 11:12:07,945 INFO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2023-12-26 11:12:08,101 INFO Updated state file /var/log/borgctl/borg_state_default_create.txt
root@linbox:~
root@linbox:~ cat /var/log/borgctl/borg_state_default_create.txt
2023-12-26_11:12:08#
root@linbox:~
root@linbox:~ ls /var/log/borgctl/borg.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11K Dec 26 11:12 /var/log/borgctl/borg.log
The executed borg command is also printed to stderr. You can adjust the parameters borgctl uses. For example you can add --json /usr/local/bin/, which will be added to borg:
root@linbox:~ borgctl create --json /usr/local/bin
2023-12-26 11:15:42,954 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:15:42,956 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCAT
ED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose create --progress --stats --one-file-system --compression=lz4 --exclude=.cache --json ::linbox_2023-12-26_11:15:42 /usr/bin --json /usr/local/bin
2023-12-26 11:15:43,518 INFO Creating archive at "/root/borg-repo::linbox_2023-12-26_11:15:42"
{
"archive": {
"command_line": [
"/usr/bin/borg",
...
For every borg command, you can add command line parameter/arguments in the config file by specifying borg_$borgcommand_arguments. They are used automatically. For example, here are default arguments for the create command:
borg_create_arguments:
- "--one-file-system"
- "--compression=lz4"
For convenient mounting, I like to use:
borg_mount_arguments:
- "--strip-components=2"
- "--foreground"
- "--last 1"
If you want to specify an archive, you have to prepend ::
root@linbox:~ borgctl list
2023-12-26 11:18:38,323 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:18:38,325 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose list
linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35 Tue, 2023-12-26 11:11:35 [079e9c226455ff1b816be986bf49029c3cdf28ec04e9f6bf2d387ea9a4f24d87]
linbox_2023-12-26_11:15:42 Tue, 2023-12-26 11:15:43 [4599ac310b99703407600bc8bfa58ddb80da7be3d613b49fdf75691b99d293e0]
root@linbox:~
root@linbox:~ borgctl list linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35
2023-12-26 11:19:06,975 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:19:06,977 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose list linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35
Remote: ssh: Could not resolve hostname linbox_2023-12-26_11: Name or service not known
2023-12-26 11:19:07,436 ERROR Connection closed by remote host. Is borg working on the server?
2023-12-26 11:19:07,518 ERROR borg failed with exit code: 2
root@linbox:~
root@linbox:~ borgctl list ::linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35
2023-12-26 11:18:33,787 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:18:33,789 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCAT
ED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose list ::linbox_2023-12-26_11:11:35
drwxr-xr-x root root 0 Tue, 2023-12-26 10:56:58 usr/bin
-rwxr-xr-x root root 21905 Fri, 2023-12-22 20:59:55 usr/bin/tzselect
-rwxr-xr-x root root 51216 Fri, 2023-12-22 20:59:55 usr/bin/zdump
-rwxr-xr-x root root 59448 Fri, 2023-12-22 20:59:55 usr/bin/zic
-rwxr-xr-x root root 27176 Sat, 2023-03-18 17:07:07 usr/bin/gdbm_dump
...
--cron is nice if you want to have a cronjob that creates, prunes and compacts backups. In the config file, you can specify which borg commands should be run if --cron is supplied:
cron_commands:
- "create"
- "prune"
- "compact"
Example outupt:
root@linbox:~ borgctl --cron
2023-12-26 11:22:06,988 INFO Using config file /etc/borgctl/default.yml
2023-12-26 11:22:06,990 INFO Running 'borg create' in --cron mode
2023-12-26 11:22:06,990 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose create --progress --stats --one-file-system --compression=lz4 --exclude=.cache ::linbox_2023-12-26_11:22:06 /usr/bin
2023-12-26 11:22:07,532 INFO Creating archive at "/root/borg-repo::linbox_2023-12-26_11:22:06"
...
2023-12-26 11:22:08,338 INFO Updated state file /var/log/borgctl/borg_state_default_create.txt
2023-12-26 11:22:08,338 INFO Running 'borg prune' in --cron mode
2023-12-26 11:22:08,338 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose prune --list --keep-last 10
2023-12-26 11:22:08,898 INFO Keeping archive (rule: secondly #1): linbox_2023-12-26_11:22:06 Tue, 2023-12-26 11:22:07 [9be95c7822b2e195fbcdfa63787d20ceb13ba04a7d560d627f2f92941e1dc23e]
2023-12-26 11:22:08,898 INFO Keeping archive (rule: secondly #2): linbox_2023-12-26_11:21:35 Tue, 2023-12-26
2023-12-26 11:22:08,969 INFO Updated state file /var/log/borgctl/borg_state_default_prune.txt
2023-12-26 11:22:08,970 INFO Running 'borg compact' in --cron mode
2023-12-26 11:22:08,970 INFO Executing: BORG_REPO="/root/borg-repo" BORG_LOGGING_CONF="/etc/borgctl/logging.conf" BORG_RSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/borg_default" BORG_RELOCATED_REPO_ACCESS_IS_OK="yes" /usr/bin/borg --verbose compact
2023-12-26 11:22:09,459 INFO compaction freed about 1.48 kB repository space.
root@linbox:~
borgctl also writes state files, if a borg command runs successfully. It contains the current date. You can use it for monitoring. State files are written to the log directory. The format is borg_state__$config_file_prefix_$borg_command.txt. In the config file you can specify a list of commands for which a state file should be created.
state_commands:
- "create"
- "prune"
root@linbox:~ cat /var/log/borgctl/borg_state_default_create.txt
2023-12-26_11:22:08
If you don't want to keep your borg passphrase on your disk, you can use ask or ask-always. If you specify ask in your config file as passphrase, you will be ask during runtime for the passphrase. The difference between ask and ask-always: That's interesting if you run borgctl with multiple config files and different configurations. You always get asked for the password if you specify ask-always. If you run borgctl with three config files and every config file has ask specified, it only asks you for the first run. Then, it uses the previously entered password.
In the config file, you can specify the borg binary (borg_binary) used for invocation. You can also add environment variables. If you need help for a borg command, you can just add help (like borgctl list help). You can change default arguments for specific borg commands by adding/modifying borg_$command_arguments in the config file (like borg_prune_arguments).
If you want to authenticate with a Yubikey without touching ~/.ssh/config, you can keep ssh_key empty and add
"BORG_RSH": "ssh -I /usr/lib64/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.so -o ForwardAgent=no -o IdentityAgent=no"
as environment variable in the config file. But you can also stay with your .ssh/config if you like.
In the config directory you will find a file called logging.conf. It is used by borgctl and borg itself for logging. The borg output (stdout and stderr) is printed to stdout, the borgctl output is printed to stderr. Everything gets logged to borg.log, which can be found in the log directory. The log file gets rotated automatically after reaching 1 megabyte. Docs can be found here and here. Here are the docs from borgbackup about logging.
I use monitoring_last_backup.py with py3status on my laptop. It shows B:3d when my last backup was 3 days ago. The color changes from green to red after 7 days. You can run python3 monitoring_last_backup.py to test it.
You need poetry. Get get started, use poetry install. Then you can run poetry run borgctl --help. The code can be found in the borgctl directory. Deployment/monitoring stuff is in the contrib directory. Tests can be run with poetry run pytest tests -s -v -x. To run the mypy checks, run poetry run mypy. Mypy is configured in pyproject.toml.
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