Borg (previously called Attic) is deduplicating

backup software In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is " back up ...

for various

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

-like operating systems. Borg is notably included in the Debian, Fedora, and Arch repositories.

History

Attic development began in 2010 and was accepted to Debian in August 2013. Attic was available from pip and notably part of Debian, Ubuntu, Arch and Slackware. In 2015, Attic was forked as "Borg" to support a "more open, faster paced development", according to its developers. Many issues in Attic have been fixed in this fork, but backward compatibility with the original program has been lost (a non-reversible upgrade process exists). Borg 1.0.0 was finally released on 5 March 2016. As of April 2021, the attic website was removed. The next major Borg version, 2.0, in beta since 2022, will break backward compatibility again, requiring a non-reversible upgrade process. As of 2024, Borg is actively developed by many contributors, while Attic is no longer available. Stable releases can be found in various Linux distributions such as

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

OpenSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. It is offered in two main variations: ''Tumbleweed'', an upstream rolling release distribution, and ''Leap'', a stable r ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, as well as in the ports collection of various BSD derivatives and through Homebrew for macOS. The project also offers pre-built binaries for Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS.

Design

Borg offers efficient, deduplicated, compressed and (optionally) encrypted and authenticated backups. A backup includes metadata like owner/group, permissions, POSIX ACLs and Extended file attributes. It handles special files also - like hardlinks, symlinks, devices files, etc. Internally it represents the files in an archive as a stream of metadata, similar to

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black b ...

and unlike tools such as

git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

. The Borg project has created extensive documentation of the internal workings. It uses a

rolling hash Rolling is a type of motion that combines rotation (commonly, of an axially symmetric object) and translation of that object with respect to a surface (either one or the other moves), such that, if ideal conditions exist, the two are in contact ...

to implement data deduplication for all data in single repository. Compression defaults to lz4, encryption is AES (via

OpenSSL OpenSSL is a software library for applications that provide secure communications over computer networks against eavesdropping, and identify the party at the other end. It is widely used by Internet servers, including the majority of HTTPS web ...

) authenticated by a

HMAC In cryptography, an HMAC (sometimes expanded as either keyed-hash message authentication code or hash-based message authentication code) is a specific type of message authentication code (MAC) involving a cryptographic hash function and a se ...

Frontends

Since Borg is essentially a command line program, several GUI frontends for Borg exist. A few desktop app,

Pika A pika ( , or ) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal native to Asia and North America. With short limbs, a very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative the rabbit, but with short, rounded ears. ...

and Vorta for example and many

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

interfaces. See the community pages for an updated list.

References

External links

Official Website of BorgBackup

Website of Attic Backup
{{Backup software 2010 software Backup software for Linux Free backup software Python (programming language) software Software using the BSD license

History

Design

Frontends

See also

References

External links