Btrfs snapshot backup utility
- Push/pull support via SSH
- Retention
- Email notifications
- Compression of transferred data
- Syslog logging
The following packages have to be available on both source and destination
- bash
- btrfs-progs
The system executing btrfs-backup requires
- python3
- ssh (for remote push/pull, not required for local operation)
- bash has to be set as the default remote shell for the user running the backup
- lzop (for compression support if desired)
- pv (provides progress indication if installed)
- sendmail (for email notifications if desired)
pip3 install btrfs-sxbackup
- when using ssh, public/private key authentication should be set up
- the destination filesystem has to be mounted without the subvol option, otherwise an error will occur on btrfs receive prompting you to remount with fs tree
- some commands (like update) may not be available for backup jobs created with older versions of btrfs-sxbackup. in this case backup jobs can be recreated using destroy and init. existing snapshots will be kept as long as destroy is not invoked with --purge.
Initialize a backup job pulling snapshots of subvolume / on remote host myhost.org to local subvolume /backup/myhost
btrfs-sxbackup init ssh://root@myhost.org:port/ /backup/myhost
Initialize a backup job pushing snapshots of local subvolume / to remote subvolume /backup/myhost on host mybackupserver.org
btrfs-sxbackup init / ssh://root@mybackupserver.org:port/backup/myhost
note that in the ssh:// URL, the username and port part are optional; if not specified, the defaults will be used.
Run a backup job
btrfs-sxbackup run /backup/myhost
Cronjob performing a pull backup job
# /etc/cron.d/btrfs-sxbackup PATH="/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin" 30 2 * * * root btrfs-sxbackup run /backup/myhost
usage: btrfs-sxbackup [-h] [-q] [--version] [-v]
{init,destroy,update,run,info,transfer} ...
positional arguments:
{init,destroy,update,run,info,transfer}
init initialize backup job
destroy destroy backup job
update update backup job
run run backup job
info backup job info
purge purge backups according to retention expressions
transfer transfer snapshot
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-q, --quiet do not log to stdout
--version show program's version number and exit
-v can be specified multiple times to increase verbosity
usage: btrfs-sxbackup init [-h] [-sr SOURCE_RETENTION]
[-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION] [-c]
source-subvolume destination-subvolume
positional arguments:
source-subvolume source subvolume to backup. local path or ssh url
destination-subvolume
destination subvolume receiving backup snapshots.
local path or ssh url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-sr SOURCE_RETENTION, --source-retention SOURCE_RETENTION
expression defining which source snapshots to
retain/cleanup. can be a static number (of backups) or
more complex expression like "1d:4/d, 1w:daily,
2m:none" literally translating to: "1 day from now
keep 4 backups a day, 1 week from now keep daily
backups, 2 months from now keep none"
-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION, --destination-retention DESTINATION_RETENTION
expression defining which destination snapshots to
retain/cleanup. can be a static number (of backups) or
more complex expression (see --source-retention
argument)
-c, --compress enables compression during transmission. Requires lzop
to be installed on both source and destination
usage: btrfs-sxbackup run [-h] [-m [MAIL]] [-li LOG_IDENT]
subvolume [subvolume ...]
positional arguments:
subvolume backup job source or destination subvolume. local path
or SSH url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-m [MAIL], --mail [MAIL]
enables email notifications. If an email address is
given, it overrides the default email-recipient
setting in /etc/btrfs-sxbackup.conf
-li LOG_IDENT, --log-ident LOG_IDENT
log ident used for syslog logging, defaults to script
name
usage: btrfs-sxbackup update [-h] [-sr SOURCE_RETENTION]
[-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION] [-c]
subvolume [subvolume ...]
positional arguments:
subvolume backup job source or destination subvolume. local path
or SSH url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-sr SOURCE_RETENTION, --source-retention SOURCE_RETENTION
expression defining which source snapshots to
retain/cleanup. can be a static number (of backups) or
more complex expression like "1d:4/d, 1w:daily,
2m:none" literally translating to: "1 day from now
keep 4 backups a day, 1 week from now keep daily
backups, 2 months from now keep none"
-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION, --destination-retention DESTINATION_RETENTION
expression defining which destination snapshots to
retain/cleanup. can be a static number (of backups) or
more complex expression (see --source-retention
argument)
-c, --compress enables compression during transmission. Requires lzop
to be installed on both source and destination
-nc, --no-compress disable compression during transmission
usage: btrfs-sxbackup info [-h] subvolume [subvolume ...]
positional arguments:
subvolume backup job source or destination subvolume. local path or SSH
url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
usage: btrfs-sxbackup purge [-h] [-sr SOURCE_RETENTION]
[-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION]
subvolume [subvolume ...]
positional arguments:
subvolume backup job source or destination subvolume. local path
or SSH url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-sr SOURCE_RETENTION, --source-retention SOURCE_RETENTION
Optionally override expression defining which source
snapshots to retain/cleanup. can be a static number
(of backups) or more complex expression like "1d:4/d,
1w:daily, 2m:none" literally translating to: "1 day
from now keep 4 backups a day, 1 week from now keep
daily backups, 2 months from now keep none"
-dr DESTINATION_RETENTION, --destination-retention DESTINATION_RETENTION
Optionally override expression defining which
destination snapshots to retain/cleanup. can be a
static number (of backups) or more complex expression
(see --source-retention argument)
usage: btrfs-sxbackup destroy [-h] [--purge] subvolume [subvolume ...]
positional arguments:
subvolume backup job source or destination subvolume. local path or SSH
url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--purge removes all backup snapshots from source and destination
usage: btrfs-sxbackup transfer [-h] [-c]
source-subvolume destination-subvolume
positional arguments:
source-subvolume source subvolume to transfer. local path or ssh url
destination-subvolume
destination subvolume. local path or ssh url
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c, --compress enables compression during transmission. Requires lzop
to be installed on both source and destination