borgmatic

---

title: borgmatic

permalink: borgmatic/index.html

Overview

borgmatic is a simple Python wrapper script for the Borg backup software that initiates a backup, prunes any old backups according to a retention policy, and validates backups for consistency. The script supports specifying your settings in a declarative configuration file rather than having to put them all on the command-line, and handles common errors.

Here's an example config file:

location:
    # List of source directories to backup. Globs are expanded.
    source_directories:
        - /home
        - /etc
        - /var/log/syslog*

    # Paths to local or remote repositories.
    repositories:
        - user@backupserver:sourcehostname.borg

    # Any paths matching these patterns are excluded from backups.
    exclude_patterns:
        - /home/*/.cache

retention:
    # Retention policy for how many backups to keep in each category.
    keep_daily: 7
    keep_weekly: 4
    keep_monthly: 6

consistency:
    # List of consistency checks to run: "repository", "archives", or both.
    checks:
        - repository
        - archives

borgmatic is hosted at https://torsion.org/borgmatic with source code available. It's also mirrored on GitHub for convenience.

Want to see borgmatic in action? Check out the screencast.

How-to guides

• Set up backups with borgmatic <-- Start here!
• Make per-application backups
• Deal with very large backups
• Inspect your backups
• Run preparation steps before backups
• Upgrade borgmatic
• Develop on borgmatic

Support and contributing

Issues

You've got issues? Or an idea for a feature enhancement? We've got an issue tracker. In order to create a new issue or comment on an issue, you'll need to login first. Note that you can login with an existing GitHub account if you prefer.

Other questions or comments? Contact witten@torsion.org.

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute to borgmatic development, please feel free to submit a Pull Request or open an issue first to discuss your idea. We also accept Pull Requests on GitHub, if that's more your thing. In general, contributions are very welcome. We don't bite!

Also, please check out the borgmatic development how-to for info on cloning source code, running tests, etc.

Troubleshooting

Broken pipe with remote repository

When running borgmatic on a large remote repository, you may receive errors like the following, particularly while "borg check" is validating backups for consistency:

    Write failed: Broken pipe
    borg: Error: Connection closed by remote host

This error can be caused by an ssh timeout, which you can rectify by adding the following to the ~/.ssh/config file on the client:

    Host *
        ServerAliveInterval 120

This should make the client keep the connection alive while validating backups.

libyaml compilation errors

borgmatic depends on a Python YAML library (ruamel.yaml) that will optionally use a C YAML library (libyaml) if present. But if it's not installed, then when installing or upgrading borgmatic, you may see errors about compiling the YAML library. If so, not to worry. borgmatic should install and function correctly even without the C YAML library. And borgmatic won't be any faster with the C library present, so you don't need to go out of your way to install it.