.\" Man page generated from reStructuredText. . .TH BORG-CREATE 1 "2019-09-06" "" "borg backup tool" .SH NAME borg-create \- Create new archive . .nr rst2man-indent-level 0 . .de1 rstReportMargin \\$1 \\n[an-margin] level \\n[rst2man-indent-level] level margin: \\n[rst2man-indent\\n[rst2man-indent-level]] - \\n[rst2man-indent0] \\n[rst2man-indent1] \\n[rst2man-indent2] .. .de1 INDENT .\" .rstReportMargin pre: . RS \\$1 . nr rst2man-indent\\n[rst2man-indent-level] \\n[an-margin] . nr rst2man-indent-level +1 .\" .rstReportMargin post: .. .de UNINDENT . RE .\" indent \\n[an-margin] .\" old: \\n[rst2man-indent\\n[rst2man-indent-level]] .nr rst2man-indent-level -1 .\" new: \\n[rst2man-indent\\n[rst2man-indent-level]] .in \\n[rst2man-indent\\n[rst2man-indent-level]]u .. .SH SYNOPSIS .sp borg [common options] create [options] ARCHIVE [PATH...] .SH DESCRIPTION .sp This command creates a backup archive containing all files found while recursively traversing all paths specified. Paths are added to the archive as they are given, that means if relative paths are desired, the command has to be run from the correct directory. .sp When giving \(aq\-\(aq as path, borg will read data from standard input and create a file \(aqstdin\(aq in the created archive from that data. .sp The archive will consume almost no disk space for files or parts of files that have already been stored in other archives. .sp The archive name needs to be unique. It must not end in \(aq.checkpoint\(aq or \(aq.checkpoint.N\(aq (with N being a number), because these names are used for checkpoints and treated in special ways. .sp In the archive name, you may use the following placeholders: {now}, {utcnow}, {fqdn}, {hostname}, {user} and some others. .sp Backup speed is increased by not reprocessing files that are already part of existing archives and weren\(aqt modified. The detection of unmodified files is done by comparing multiple file metadata values with previous values kept in the files cache. .sp This comparison can operate in different modes as given by \fB\-\-files\-cache\fP: .INDENT 0.0 .IP \(bu 2 ctime,size,inode (default) .IP \(bu 2 mtime,size,inode (default behaviour of borg versions older than 1.1.0rc4) .IP \(bu 2 ctime,size (ignore the inode number) .IP \(bu 2 mtime,size (ignore the inode number) .IP \(bu 2 rechunk,ctime (all files are considered modified \- rechunk, cache ctime) .IP \(bu 2 rechunk,mtime (all files are considered modified \- rechunk, cache mtime) .IP \(bu 2 disabled (disable the files cache, all files considered modified \- rechunk) .UNINDENT .sp inode number: better safety, but often unstable on network filesystems .sp Normally, detecting file modifications will take inode information into consideration to improve the reliability of file change detection. This is problematic for files located on sshfs and similar network file systems which do not provide stable inode numbers, such files will always be considered modified. You can use modes without \fIinode\fP in this case to improve performance, but reliability of change detection might be reduced. .sp ctime vs. mtime: safety vs. speed .INDENT 0.0 .IP \(bu 2 ctime is a rather safe way to detect changes to a file (metadata and contents) as it can not be set from userspace. But, a metadata\-only change will already update the ctime, so there might be some unnecessary chunking/hashing even without content changes. Some filesystems do not support ctime (change time). .IP \(bu 2 mtime usually works and only updates if file contents were changed. But mtime can be arbitrarily set from userspace, e.g. to set mtime back to the same value it had before a content change happened. This can be used maliciously as well as well\-meant, but in both cases mtime based cache modes can be problematic. .UNINDENT .sp The mount points of filesystems or filesystem snapshots should be the same for every creation of a new archive to ensure fast operation. This is because the file cache that is used to determine changed files quickly uses absolute filenames. If this is not possible, consider creating a bind mount to a stable location. .sp The \fB\-\-progress\fP option shows (from left to right) Original, Compressed and Deduplicated (O, C and D, respectively), then the Number of files (N) processed so far, followed by the currently processed path. .sp When using \fB\-\-stats\fP, you will get some statistics about how much data was added \- the "This Archive" deduplicated size there is most interesting as that is how much your repository will grow. Please note that the "All archives" stats refer to the state after creation. Also, the \fB\-\-stats\fP and \fB\-\-dry\-run\fP options are mutually exclusive because the data is not actually compressed and deduplicated during a dry run. .sp See the output of the "borg help patterns" command for more help on exclude patterns. See the output of the "borg help placeholders" command for more help on placeholders. .SH OPTIONS .sp See \fIborg\-common(1)\fP for common options of Borg commands. .SS arguments .INDENT 0.0 .TP .B ARCHIVE name of archive to create (must be also a valid directory name) .TP .B PATH paths to archive .UNINDENT .SS optional arguments .INDENT 0.0 .TP .B \-n\fP,\fB \-\-dry\-run do not create a backup archive .TP .B \-s\fP,\fB \-\-stats print statistics for the created archive .TP .B \-\-list output verbose list of items (files, dirs, ...) .TP .BI \-\-filter \ STATUSCHARS only display items with the given status characters (see description) .TP .B \-\-json output stats as JSON. Implies \fB\-\-stats\fP\&. .TP .B \-\-no\-cache\-sync experimental: do not synchronize the cache. Implies not using the files cache. .TP .BI \-\-stdin\-name \ NAME use NAME in archive for stdin data (default: "stdin") .UNINDENT .SS Exclusion options .INDENT 0.0 .TP .BI \-e \ PATTERN\fP,\fB \ \-\-exclude \ PATTERN exclude paths matching PATTERN .TP .BI \-\-exclude\-from \ EXCLUDEFILE read exclude patterns from EXCLUDEFILE, one per line .TP .BI \-\-pattern \ PATTERN experimental: include/exclude paths matching PATTERN .TP .BI \-\-patterns\-from \ PATTERNFILE experimental: read include/exclude patterns from PATTERNFILE, one per line .TP .B \-\-exclude\-caches exclude directories that contain a CACHEDIR.TAG file (\fI\%http://www.bford.info/cachedir/spec.html\fP) .TP .BI \-\-exclude\-if\-present \ NAME exclude directories that are tagged by containing a filesystem object with the given NAME .TP .B \-\-keep\-exclude\-tags if tag objects are specified with \fB\-\-exclude\-if\-present\fP, don\(aqt omit the tag objects themselves from the backup archive .TP .B \-\-exclude\-nodump exclude files flagged NODUMP .UNINDENT .SS Filesystem options .INDENT 0.0 .TP .B \-x\fP,\fB \-\-one\-file\-system stay in the same file system and do not store mount points of other file systems .TP .B \-\-numeric\-owner only store numeric user and group identifiers .TP .B \-\-noatime do not store atime into archive .TP .B \-\-atime do store atime into archive .TP .B \-\-noctime do not store ctime into archive .TP .B \-\-nobirthtime do not store birthtime (creation date) into archive .TP .B \-\-nobsdflags do not read and store bsdflags (e.g. NODUMP, IMMUTABLE) into archive .TP .BI \-\-files\-cache \ MODE operate files cache in MODE. default: ctime,size,inode .TP .B \-\-read\-special open and read block and char device files as well as FIFOs as if they were regular files. Also follows symlinks pointing to these kinds of files. .UNINDENT .SS Archive options .INDENT 0.0 .TP .BI \-\-comment \ COMMENT add a comment text to the archive .TP .BI \-\-timestamp \ TIMESTAMP manually specify the archive creation date/time (UTC, yyyy\-mm\-ddThh:mm:ss format). Alternatively, give a reference file/directory. .TP .BI \-c \ SECONDS\fP,\fB \ \-\-checkpoint\-interval \ SECONDS write checkpoint every SECONDS seconds (Default: 1800) .TP .BI \-\-chunker\-params \ PARAMS specify the chunker parameters (ALGO, CHUNK_MIN_EXP, CHUNK_MAX_EXP, HASH_MASK_BITS, HASH_WINDOW_SIZE). default: buzhash,19,23,21,4095 .TP .BI \-C \ COMPRESSION\fP,\fB \ \-\-compression \ COMPRESSION select compression algorithm, see the output of the "borg help compression" command for details. .UNINDENT .SH EXAMPLES .INDENT 0.0 .INDENT 3.5 .sp .nf .ft C # Backup ~/Documents into an archive named "my\-documents" $ borg create /path/to/repo::my\-documents ~/Documents # same, but list all files as we process them $ borg create \-\-list /path/to/repo::my\-documents ~/Documents # Backup ~/Documents and ~/src but exclude pyc files $ borg create /path/to/repo::my\-files \e ~/Documents \e ~/src \e \-\-exclude \(aq*.pyc\(aq # Backup home directories excluding image thumbnails (i.e. only # /home//.thumbnails is excluded, not /home/*/*/.thumbnails etc.) $ borg create /path/to/repo::my\-files /home \e \-\-exclude \(aqsh:/home/*/.thumbnails\(aq # Backup the root filesystem into an archive named "root\-YYYY\-MM\-DD" # use zlib compression (good, but slow) \- default is lz4 (fast, low compression ratio) $ borg create \-C zlib,6 \-\-one\-file\-system /path/to/repo::root\-{now:%Y\-%m\-%d} / # Backup onto a remote host ("push" style) via ssh to port 2222, # logging in as user "borg" and storing into /path/to/repo $ borg create ssh://borg@backup.example.org:2222/path/to/repo::{fqdn}\-root\-{now} / # Backup a remote host locally ("pull" style) using sshfs $ mkdir sshfs\-mount $ sshfs root@example.com:/ sshfs\-mount $ cd sshfs\-mount $ borg create /path/to/repo::example.com\-root\-{now:%Y\-%m\-%d} . $ cd .. $ fusermount \-u sshfs\-mount # Make a big effort in fine granular deduplication (big chunk management # overhead, needs a lot of RAM and disk space, see formula in internals # docs \- same parameters as borg < 1.0 or attic): $ borg create \-\-chunker\-params buzhash,10,23,16,4095 /path/to/repo::small /smallstuff # Backup a raw device (must not be active/in use/mounted at that time) $ dd if=/dev/sdx bs=4M | borg create \-\-chunker\-params fixed,4194304 /path/to/repo::my\-sdx \- # No compression (none) $ borg create \-\-compression none /path/to/repo::arch ~ # Super fast, low compression (lz4, default) $ borg create /path/to/repo::arch ~ # Less fast, higher compression (zlib, N = 0..9) $ borg create \-\-compression zlib,N /path/to/repo::arch ~ # Even slower, even higher compression (lzma, N = 0..9) $ borg create \-\-compression lzma,N /path/to/repo::arch ~ # Only compress compressible data with lzma,N (N = 0..9) $ borg create \-\-compression auto,lzma,N /path/to/repo::arch ~ # Use short hostname, user name and current time in archive name $ borg create /path/to/repo::{hostname}\-{user}\-{now} ~ # Similar, use the same datetime format that is default as of borg 1.1 $ borg create /path/to/repo::{hostname}\-{user}\-{now:%Y\-%m\-%dT%H:%M:%S} ~ # As above, but add nanoseconds $ borg create /path/to/repo::{hostname}\-{user}\-{now:%Y\-%m\-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f} ~ # Backing up relative paths by moving into the correct directory first $ cd /home/user/Documents # The root directory of the archive will be "projectA" $ borg create /path/to/repo::daily\-projectA\-{now:%Y\-%m\-%d} projectA .ft P .fi .UNINDENT .UNINDENT .SH NOTES .sp The \fB\-\-exclude\fP patterns are not like tar. In tar \fB\-\-exclude\fP .bundler/gems will exclude foo/.bundler/gems. In borg it will not, you need to use \fB\-\-exclude\fP \(aq*/.bundler/gems\(aq to get the same effect. See \fBborg help patterns\fP for more information. .sp In addition to using \fB\-\-exclude\fP patterns, it is possible to use \fB\-\-exclude\-if\-present\fP to specify the name of a filesystem object (e.g. a file or folder name) which, when contained within another folder, will prevent the containing folder from being backed up. By default, the containing folder and all of its contents will be omitted from the backup. If, however, you wish to only include the objects specified by \fB\-\-exclude\-if\-present\fP in your backup, and not include any other contents of the containing folder, this can be enabled through using the \fB\-\-keep\-exclude\-tags\fP option. .SS Item flags .sp \fB\-\-list\fP outputs a list of all files, directories and other file system items it considered (no matter whether they had content changes or not). For each item, it prefixes a single\-letter flag that indicates type and/or status of the item. .sp If you are interested only in a subset of that output, you can give e.g. \fB\-\-filter=AME\fP and it will only show regular files with A, M or E status (see below). .sp A uppercase character represents the status of a regular file relative to the "files" cache (not relative to the repo \-\- this is an issue if the files cache is not used). Metadata is stored in any case and for \(aqA\(aq and \(aqM\(aq also new data chunks are stored. For \(aqU\(aq all data chunks refer to already existing chunks. .INDENT 0.0 .IP \(bu 2 \(aqA\(aq = regular file, added (see also \fIa_status_oddity\fP in the FAQ) .IP \(bu 2 \(aqM\(aq = regular file, modified .IP \(bu 2 \(aqU\(aq = regular file, unchanged .IP \(bu 2 \(aqC\(aq = regular file, it changed while we backed it up .IP \(bu 2 \(aqE\(aq = regular file, an error happened while accessing/reading \fIthis\fP file .UNINDENT .sp A lowercase character means a file type other than a regular file, borg usually just stores their metadata: .INDENT 0.0 .IP \(bu 2 \(aqd\(aq = directory .IP \(bu 2 \(aqb\(aq = block device .IP \(bu 2 \(aqc\(aq = char device .IP \(bu 2 \(aqh\(aq = regular file, hardlink (to already seen inodes) .IP \(bu 2 \(aqs\(aq = symlink .IP \(bu 2 \(aqf\(aq = fifo .UNINDENT .sp Other flags used include: .INDENT 0.0 .IP \(bu 2 \(aqi\(aq = backup data was read from standard input (stdin) .IP \(bu 2 \(aq\-\(aq = dry run, item was \fInot\fP backed up .IP \(bu 2 \(aqx\(aq = excluded, item was \fInot\fP backed up .IP \(bu 2 \(aq?\(aq = missing status code (if you see this, please file a bug report!) .UNINDENT .SH SEE ALSO .sp \fIborg\-common(1)\fP, \fIborg\-delete(1)\fP, \fIborg\-prune(1)\fP, \fIborg\-check(1)\fP, \fIborg\-patterns(1)\fP, \fIborg\-placeholders(1)\fP, \fIborg\-compression(1)\fP .SH AUTHOR The Borg Collective .\" Generated by docutils manpage writer. .