borgmatic/docs/reference/configuration/repositories.md

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title: Repositories eleventyNavigation: key: 🗃️ Repositories

parent: ⚙️ Configuration

Borg repositories are where your backups get stored. You can define them in borgmatic's configuration via the repositories option, something like:

repositories:
    - path: /path/to/first.borg
      label: first
    - path: /path/to/second.borg
      label: second

Each repository has a path and an optional label. The Borg repository URLs documentation has examples of valid repositories paths, but see below for some borgmatic-specific examples.

The label shows up in logged messages about the repository and also serves as a way to refer to the repository via the --repository flag on the command-line for supported actions.

When you run borgmatic's create action, it invokes Borg once for each configured repository in sequence. (So, not in parallel.) That means—in each repository—borgmatic creates a single new backup archive containing all of your source directories.

SSH

Backing up to a remote server via SSH looks like:

repositories:
    - path: ssh://user@host:port/./absolute/path/to/repo

Or relative to the remote user's home directory:

repositories:
    - path: ssh://user@host:port/~/relative/path/to/repo

This assumes that you've already configured SSH access (e.g. public keys, known hosts, authorized hosts, etc.) outside of borgmatic and that Borg is installed on the server.

With Borg version 2.xThe SSH syntax is a little different:

repositories:
    - path: ssh://user@host:port//absolute/path/to/repo

Or relative to the remote user's home directory:

repositories:
    - path: ssh://user@host:port/relative/path/to/repo

Also see the ssh_command configuration option for overriding the path to the SSH binary or passing it custom flags. For example:

ssh_command: ssh -i /path/to/private/key

SFTP

SFTP repositories work just like SSH repositories, but with sftp:// substituted for ssh://.

Rclone

New in Borg version 2.x If you're using Borg 2, you can backup to repositories via Rclone, which supports a large number of cloud providers. This means that Borg, via Rclone, backs up directly to a cloud provider without having to create an intermediate repository.

The borgmatic configuration for Rclone looks like:

repositories:
    - path: rclone:remote:path

Note the lack of "//" after rclone:.

This configuration assumes that you've already configured a corresponding Rclone remote.

S3 / B2

New in Borg version 2.x Borg 2 supports storing repositories directly on Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, or an S3-alike service, even without the use of Rclone or an intermediate repository. The configuration for that might look like one of the following:

repositories:
    - path: s3:access_key_id:access_key_secret@/bucket/path 
    - path: b2:access_key_id:access_key_secret@schema://hostname:port/bucket/path 

Note the lack of "//" after s3: or b2:.

When selecting your cloud hosting provider, be aware that Amazon in particular has financially supported the Trump regime.

Related documentation

• How to make backups redundant
• How to provide your passwords