.. title: Automating Borg
.. date: 2020-02-02
.. slug: automating-borg
.. updated: 2020-02-02
.. status: published
.. tags: backup, borgbackup, borg, borgmatic
.. category: backup
.. authors: Elia el Lazkani
.. description: We've had a look at **Borg** before, let's find out how to automate it.
.. type: text


In the :doc:`previous blog post <borgbackup>`, I talked about **borg**.
If you read that post, you would've noticed that **borg** has a lot of features.
With a lot of features come a lot of automation.

If you were thinking about using **borg**, you should either make a *simple cron*
or you're gonna have to write an elaborate script to take care of all the different steps.

What if I told you there's another way ? An easier way ! The **Borgmatic** way...
What would you say ?

.. TEASER_END

Borgmatic
=========

**Borgmatic** is defined on their `website <https://torsion.org/borgmatic/>`_ as follows.

    borgmatic is simple, configuration-driven backup software for servers and workstations.
    Protect your files with client-side encryption. Backup your databases too.
    Monitor it all with integrated third-party services.

If you go down to it, **borgmatic** uses **borg**'s *API* to automate a list of configurable *tasks*.
This way, it saves you the trouble of writing your own scripts to automate these steps.

**Borgmatic** uses a *YAML* configuration file. Let's configure a few tasks.

Location
========

First, let's start by configuring the locations that **borg** is going to be working with.

.. code:: yaml

    location:
        source_directories:
            - /home/
    
        repositories:
            - user@backupserver:sourcehostname.borg
    
        one_file_system: true
    
        exclude_patterns:
            - /home/*/.cache
            - '*.pyc'

This tells **borg** that we need to backup our ``/home`` directories excluding a few patterns.
Let's not forget that we told **borg** where the repository is located at.

Storage
=======

We need to configure the storage next.

.. code:: yaml

    storage:
        # Recommended
        # encryption_passcommand: secret-tool lookup borg-repository repo-name
    
        encryption_passphrase: "ReallyStrongPassphrase"
        compression: zstd,15
        ssh_command: ssh -i /path/to/private/key
        borg_security_directory: /path/to/base/config/security
        archive_name_format: 'borgmatic-{hostname}-{now}'

In this section, we tell borg a little big of information about our repository.
What are the credentials, where it can find them, etc.

The easy way is to go with a ``passphrase``, but I recommend using an ``encryption_passcommand`` instead.
I also use ``zstd`` for encryption instead of ``lz4``, you better do your research before you change the default.
I also recommend, just as they do, the use of a security directory as well.

Retention
=========

We can configure a retention for our backups, if we like.

.. code:: yaml

    retention:
        keep_hourly: 7
        keep_daily: 7
        keep_weekly: 4
        keep_monthly: 6
        keep_yearly: 2
    
        prefix: "borgmatic-"

The part of what to keep from *hourly* to *daily* is self explanatory.
I would like to point out the ``prefix`` part as it is important.
This is the *prefix* that **borgmatic** uses to consider backups for **pruning**.

.. warning::

   Watch out for the retention ``prefix``

Consistency
===========

After the updates, we'd like to check our backups.

.. code:: yaml

    consistency:
        checks:
            - repository
            - archives
    
        check_last: 3
    
        prefix: "borgmatic-"

.. warning::

   Watch out, again, for the consistency ``prefix``

Hooks
=====

Finally, hooks.

I'm going to talk about hooks a bit. Hooks can be used to backup **MySQL**, **PostgreSQL** or **MariaDB**.
They can also be hooks for ``on_error``, ``before_backup``, ``after_backup``, ``before_everything`` and ``after_everything``.
You can also hook to third party services which you can check on their webpage.

I deployed my own, so I configured my own.

Borgmatic Configuration
=======================

Let's put everything together now.

.. code:: yaml

    location:
        source_directories:
            - /home/
    
        repositories:
            - user@backupserver:sourcehostname.borg
    
        one_file_system: true
    
        exclude_patterns:
            - /home/*/.cache
            - '*.pyc'

    storage:
        # Recommended
        # encryption_passcommand: secret-tool lookup borg-repository repo-name
    
        encryption_passphrase: "ReallyStrongPassphrase"
        compression: zstd,15
        ssh_command: ssh -i /path/to/private/key
        borg_security_directory: /path/to/base/config/security
        archive_name_format: 'borgmatic-{hostname}-{now}'

    retention:
        keep_hourly: 7
        keep_daily: 7
        keep_weekly: 4
        keep_monthly: 6
        keep_yearly: 2
    
        prefix: "borgmatic-"

    consistency:
        checks:
            - repository
            - archives
    
        check_last: 3
    
        prefix: "borgmatic-"


Now that we have everything together, let's save it in ``/etc/borgmatic.d/home.yaml``.

Usage
=====

If you have **borg** and **borgmatic** already installed on your system and the **borgmatic** configuration file in place,
you can test it out.

You can create the repository.

.. code:: text

    # borgmatic init -v 2

You can list the backups for the repository.

.. code:: text

    # borgmatic list --last 5
    borgmatic-home-2020-01-30T22:01:30 Thu, 2020-01-30 22:01:42 [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
    borgmatic-home-2020-01-31T22:02:12 Fri, 2020-01-31 22:02:24 [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
    borgmatic-home-2020-02-01T22:01:34 Sat, 2020-02-01 22:01:45 [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
    borgmatic-home-2020-02-02T16:01:22 Sun, 2020-02-02 16:01:32 [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]
    borgmatic-home-2020-02-02T18:01:36 Sun, 2020-02-02 18:01:47 [0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000]

You could run a check.

.. code:: text

    # borgmatic check -v 1
    /etc/borgmatic.d/home.yaml: Pinging Healthchecks start
    /borg/home: Running consistency checks
    Remote: Starting repository check
    Remote: Starting repository index check
    Remote: Completed repository check, no problems found.
    Starting archive consistency check...
    Analyzing archive borgmatic-home-2020-02-01T22:01:34 (1/3)
    Analyzing archive borgmatic-home-2020-02-02T16:01:22 (2/3)
    Analyzing archive borgmatic-home-2020-02-02T18:01:36 (3/3)
    Orphaned objects check skipped (needs all archives checked).
    Archive consistency check complete, no problems found.
    
    summary:
    /etc/borgmatic.d/home.yaml: Successfully ran configuration file

But most of all, if you simply run ``borgmatic`` without any parameters, it will run through the whole configuration and apply all the steps.

At this point, you can simply add the ``borgmatic`` command in a **cron** to run on an interval.
The other options would be to configure a ``systemd`` **timer** and **service** to run this on an interval.
The latter is usually provided to you if you used your **package manager** to install **borgmatic**.

Conclusion
==========

If you've checked **borg** and found it too much work to script, give **borgmatic** a try.
I've been using borgmatic for few weeks now with no issues at all.
I recently hooked it to a monitoring system so I will have a better view on when it runs, how much time each run takes.
Also, if any of my backups fail I get notified by email. I hope you enjoy **borg** and **borgmatic** as much as I am.
