Borg Backups

In times past, I’ve done backups using rsync with simple cron jobs. This post explains how I’m now using Borg to do backups with snapshots and a Systemd timer to run them. I have found Borgmatic to be the perfect tool for this for simple remote backups!

Installing in Ubuntu

sudo apt install borgbackup borgmatic

The Borgmatic config file:

source_directories:
    - /docker/node05.home.scottyob.com/minecraft
repositories:
    - path: ssh://root@wor-prod.home.scottyob.com/root/scott/backups
      label: minecraft
hooks:
  after_backup:
    - >
      echo 'backup_time{target="minecraft"}' $(date +%s) > /docker/backup_success/minecraft.prom
  on_error:
    - >
      curl -H "Priority: high" -d "Backup Failed" ntfy.sh/scott-random-string
encryption_passphrase: "redacted"
ssh_command: ssh -i ~scott/.ssh/id_ed25519
keep_hourly: 24
keep_daily: 7
keep_weekly: 4

Initializing the backups, performing a first run:

borgmatic init --encryption repokey
borgmatic --verbosity 1 --list --stats

Modifying systemd timer to be hourly:

systemctl edit borgmatic.timer

...
### Editing /etc/systemd/system/borgmatic.timer.d/override.conf
### Anything between here and the comment below will become the contents of the drop-in file

[Timer]
OnCalendar=
RandomizedDelaySec=
OnCalendar=hourly

### Edits below this comment will be discarded


### /usr/lib/systemd/system/borgmatic.timer
# [Unit]
# Description=Run borgmatic backup
#
# [Timer]
# OnCalendar=daily
# Persistent=true
# RandomizedDelaySec=3h
#
# [Install]
# WantedBy=timers.target

Listing archives:

borgmatic list
minecraft: Listing archives
node05-2025-05-02T12:11:02.672489    Fri, 2025-05-02 12:11:04 [40e13b3bcab0869f0fbd5850b24e5167a1503f1a47c8442ed6529137bc576496]
node05-2025-05-02T12:20:39.889830    Fri, 2025-05-02 12:20:42 [55d5c17bc1c290226d645426b5d69a80d77bbedb8f8b0bb0551fc3aa7342cdab]

Simple little tool seems to be working wonders for me 😊