Please note that this is the README for borg2 / master branch.
borg2 is currently in beta testing.
For the stable version’s docs, please see there:
https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
TODO: the screencasts need a remake using borg2, see there:
BorgBackup (short: Borg) is a deduplicating backup program. Optionally, it supports compression and authenticated encryption.
The main goal of Borg is to provide an efficient and secure way to backup data. The data deduplication technique used makes Borg suitable for daily backups since only changes are stored. The authenticated encryption technique makes it suitable for backups to not fully trusted targets.
See the installation manual or, if you have already
downloaded Borg, docs/installation.rst
to get started with Borg.
There is also an offline documentation available, in multiple formats.
Deduplication based on content-defined chunking is used to reduce the number of bytes stored: each file is split into a number of variable length chunks and only chunks that have never been seen before are added to the repository.
A chunk is considered duplicate if its id_hash value is identical. A cryptographically strong hash or MAC function is used as id_hash, e.g. (hmac-)sha256.
To deduplicate, all the chunks in the same repository are considered, no matter whether they come from different machines, from previous backups, from the same backup or even from the same single file.
Compared to other deduplication approaches, this method does NOT depend on:
All data can be optionally compressed:
We offer single-file binaries that do not require installing anything - you can just run them on these platforms:
For ease of use, set the BORG_REPO environment variable:
$ export BORG_REPO=/path/to/repo
Create a new backup repository (see borg rcreate --help
for encryption options):
$ borg rcreate -e repokey-aes-ocb
Create a new backup archive:
$ borg create Monday1 ~/Documents
Now doing another backup, just to show off the great deduplication:
$ borg create -v --stats Monday2 ~/Documents
Repository: /path/to/repo
Archive name: Monday2
Archive fingerprint: 7714aef97c1a24539cc3dc73f79b060f14af04e2541da33d54c7ee8e81a00089
Time (start): Mon, 2022-10-03 19:57:35 +0200
Time (end): Mon, 2022-10-03 19:57:35 +0200
Duration: 0.01 seconds
Number of files: 24
Original size: 29.73 MB
Deduplicated size: 520 B
Your help is always welcome!
Spread the word, give feedback, help with documentation, testing or development.
You can also give monetary support to the project, see there for details:
EXPECT THAT WE WILL BREAK COMPATIBILITY REPEATEDLY WHEN MAJOR RELEASE NUMBER CHANGES (like when going from 0.x.y to 1.0.0 or from 1.x.y to 2.0.0).
NOT RELEASED DEVELOPMENT VERSIONS HAVE UNKNOWN COMPATIBILITY PROPERTIES.
THIS IS SOFTWARE IN DEVELOPMENT, DECIDE YOURSELF WHETHER IT FITS YOUR NEEDS.
Security issues should be reported to the Security contact (or
see docs/support.rst
in the source distribution).