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source: borgbackup.readthedocs.io

[!NOTE] This is the best version that is currently work as expected for non-root borg backups.

Currently, auto-penguin-setup project has the borgbackup systemd service with shell script and setup everything automatically for home related documentation backups. Beware it won't do for root related backups.

How to check for errors manually

sudo /opt/borg/home-borgbackup.sh 2>&1 | tee /tmp/borg-debug.log

borg check --repair -v --progress

Maintainence

Clearing all indexes and caches and running borg check was also to get consistence back and have some confidence that everything actually is consistent.

borg delete --cache-only REPO # get rid of client-side cache
borg check --repair -v --progress

Revert

sudo borg extract --progress --list /mnt/backups/borgbackup/root-repo::Today-26-02-2024

Create

borg init --encryption=none /media/backups/home-repo

sudo borg create /media/backups/home-repo::main /home/developer/*

sudo borg create --list --filter=AME --progress --stats --exclude-from my_exclude --exclude-caches --compression zstd,15 /media/backups/borgbackup/doc-repo::home /home/developer/
  • AME for --list option to see only added, modified, error happened reading file.

How to see repositories?

borg list <repo_location>

How to show what changes happened, compare with other repo

https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage/diff.html

sudo borg list /mnt/backups/borgbackup/home-nixos
home-developer-12-06-2025            Thu, 2025-06-12 10:00:49 [134097e6201cd47e17c5aasdg80f5f900413a76328321126]
home-developer-13-06-2025            Fri, 2025-06-13 10:00:42 [2f93e27622cf45302c47832basdga1df5d02b467126437427]

sudo borg diff --sort --content-only /mnt/backups/borgbackup/home-nixos::home-developer-13-06-2025 home-developer-12-06-2025

How to show all files on specific repo?

@short = hide permissions and user, group.

sudo borg list --short /mnt/backups/borgbackup/root-repo::root-01-03-2024

How to extract file

# search the file you want to extract
sudo borg list /mnt/backups/borgbackup/home::home-backup-19-06-2026 | grep "deployv2.sh"
# -rw-r--r-- developer developer     2931 Thu, 2026-05-21 19:38:39 home/developer/Documents/repositories/my-repos/learning-notes/scripts/deployv2.sh

# search with regex
sudo borg list --short /mnt/backups/borgbackup/home::home-backup-11-10-2026 | grep -E '(^|/)cache(/|$)'

# extract the file you want
sudo borg extract /mnt/backups/borgbackup/home::home-backup-19-06-2026 home/developer/Documents/repositories/my-repos/learning-notes/scripts/deployv2.sh
# output would be in named /home/ if your repo include your home dir
# and be careful that /home going to be root permission
# fix the permission issue with this:
sudo chmod 755 -R ./home/*

Setup alias for borg_repo, passpharse

export BORG_REPO = '/media/backups/borgrepo'
export BORG_PASSPHRASE='1234'

Comparison backups

borg diff <repo>::Tuesday Monday
output: add 20B Wallpaper/newfile.txt

Mount repo to linux

borg mount :: /tmp/mount