A CLI tool to manage backups

backer-upper uses gpg for encryption, so you will need that installed and a key generated if you want to encrypt your backups. You can generate a key with this command:

gpg --full-generate-key

The sync command requires a specially formatted TOML file that describes a number of backups and their schedules. The sync command consults this file and the last backup performed to determine if it's time for a new backup, and will also delete old redundant backups if required.

The TOML file should be structured like this:

[name-of-backup]
globs = ["/files/to/back/up", "/more/files/to/back/up/*"]
gpg_id = "[email protected]" # Optional
host = "my.remote.host" # Optional
dir = "/backup/dir/"
format = "backup_%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S.tar.gz.gpg"
interval = "1 day"
copies = 3 # Optional

If gpg_id is specified, then the GPG key with that ID will be used to encrypt the backup. Keep in mind that you will need that key to restore the backup.

The host field is only necessary if backups are kept on a remote host. If it is specified, ssh and scp are used to upload the backups automatically.

You can use any valid date format string for format. Do not include any path separators, dir should point directly to the directory containing all the backup files.

interval always looks like {integer} {unit}. A variety of intervals are accepted:

• "M", "month", "months"
• "w", "week", "weeks"
• "d", "day", "days"
• "h", "hour", "hours"
• "m", "minute", "minutes"
• "s", "second", "seconds"

copies determines how many old backups to keep. If there are too many, the oldest is deleted. If copies is not specified, then old backups are never deleted.

If you would like to keep redundant backups on different timescales (i.e. 24 hourly backups, 7 daily backups, 4 weekly backups, and 12 monthly backups), then you should set up multiple sections, each with their own schedule. There will be some redundancy with the most recent backup, but that is the price you pay for simplicity.