borgmatic/docs/how-to/run-arbitrary-borg-commands.md

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title: How to run arbitrary Borg commands eleventyNavigation: key: 🔧 Run arbitrary Borg commands parent: How-to guides

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Running Borg with borgmatic

Borg has several commands and options that borgmatic does not currently support. Sometimes though, as a borgmatic user, you may find yourself wanting to take advantage of these off-the-beaten-path Borg features. You could of course drop down to running Borg directly. But then you'd give up all the niceties of your borgmatic configuration. You could file a borgmatic ticket or even a pull request to add the feature. But what if you need it now?

That's where borgmatic's support for running "arbitrary" Borg commands comes in. Running these Borg commands with borgmatic can take advantage of the following, all based on your borgmatic configuration files or command-line arguments:

• configured repositories, running your Borg command once for each one
• local and remote Borg executable paths
• SSH settings and Borg environment variables
• lock wait settings
• verbosity

borg action

New in version 1.5.15 The way you run Borg with borgmatic is via the borg action. Here's a simple example:

borgmatic borg break-lock

This runs Borg's break-lock command once with each configured borgmatic repository, passing the repository path in as a Borg-supported environment variable named BORG_REPO. (The native borgmatic break-lock action should be preferred though for most uses.)

You can also specify Borg options for relevant commands. For instance:

borgmatic borg repo-list --short

(No borgmatic repo-list action? Try rlist or list instead or upgrade borgmatic!)

This runs Borg's repo-list command once on each configured borgmatic repository.

What if you only want to run Borg on a single configured borgmatic repository when you've got several configured? Not a problem. The --repository argument lets you specify the repository to use, either by its path or its label:

borgmatic borg --repository repo.borg break-lock

And if you need to specify where the repository goes in the command because there are positional arguments after it:

borgmatic borg debug dump-manifest :: root

The :: is a Borg placeholder that means: Substitute the repository passed in by environment variable here.

Prior to version 1.8.0borgmatic attempted to inject the repository name directly into your Borg arguments in the right place (which didn't always work). So your command-line in these older versions didn't support the ::

Specifying an archive

For borg commands that expect an archive name, you have a few approaches. Here's one:

borgmatic borg --archive latest list '::$ARCHIVE'

The single quotes are necessary in order to pass in a literal $ARCHIVE string instead of trying to resolve it from borgmatic's shell where it's not yet set.

Or if you don't need borgmatic to resolve an archive name like latest, you can do:

borgmatic borg list ::your-actual-archive-name

Prior to version 1.8.0borgmatic provided the archive name implicitly along with the repository, attempting to inject it into your Borg arguments in the right place (which didn't always work). So your command-line in these older versions of borgmatic looked more like:

borgmatic borg --archive latest list

With Borg version 2.x Either of these will list an archive:

borgmatic borg --archive latest list '$ARCHIVE'

borgmatic borg list your-actual-archive-name

Limitations

borgmatic's borg action is not without limitations:

• The Borg command you want to run (create, list, etc.) must come first after the borg action (and any borgmatic-specific arguments). If you have other Borg options to specify, provide them after. For instance, borgmatic borg list --progress ... will work, but borgmatic borg --progress list ... will not.
• Do not specify any global borgmatic arguments to the right of the borg action. (They will be passed to Borg instead of borgmatic.) If you have global borgmatic arguments, specify them before the borg action.
• Unlike other borgmatic actions, you cannot combine the borg action with other borgmatic actions. This is to prevent ambiguity in commands like borgmatic borg list, in which list is both a valid Borg command and a borgmatic action. In this case, only the Borg command is run.
• Unlike normal borgmatic actions that support JSON, the borg action will not disable certain borgmatic logs to avoid interfering with JSON output.
• The borg action bypasses most of borgmatic's machinery, so for instance monitoring hooks will not get triggered when running borgmatic borg create.
• Prior to version 1.8.0 borgmatic implicitly injected the repository/archive arguments on the Borg command-line for you (based on your borgmatic configuration or the borgmatic borg --repository/--archive arguments)—which meant you couldn't specify the repository/archive directly in the Borg command. Also, in these older versions of borgmatic, the borg action didn't work for any Borg commands like borg serve that do not accept a repository/archive name.
• Prior to version 1.7.13 Unlike other borgmatic actions, the borg action captured (and logged) all output, so interactive prompts and flags like --progress dit not work as expected. In new versions, borgmatic runs the borg action without capturing output, so interactive prompts work.

In general, this borgmatic borg feature should be considered an escape valve—a feature of second resort. In the long run, it's preferable to wrap Borg commands with borgmatic actions that can support them fully.