boltbackup: A backup utility built on boltdb

Yet another file backup tool, designed around my own personal requirements:

• Backup targets should be easily expressed in a single file, like a .gitignore. I'm choosing to call it a Backupfile
• Backup config should live with the rest of my system config, i.e. as a dotfile in $HOME
• The backup output should be a single, compact file
• The backup process should be fairly speedy so that I do it regularly
• Permissions and other file metadata don't matter

The command takes a list of file paths/patterns (via a Backupfile) and writes the gzipped contents of those files to a Bolt database. Bolt is a key/value store that works via a single local file, rather than a full database server.

Installation

go get github.com/jmackie/boltbackup

Usage

boltbackup is file backup utility, built on boltdb

Usage:

	boltbackup command [arguments]

The commands are:

	backup      put a bunch of files into a boltdb file
	restore     get files out of a db
	ls          list files that exist in a db


See also:
	boltdb          https://github.com/boltdb/bolt
	pattern syntax  https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Match

The Backupfile

An example might be:

# ~/.backup
.*
stuff/
code/*.go
more_stuff/
!more_stuff/boring/

This file and the patterns it contains will resolve to a list of files that should be backed up. You would pass it to the boltbackup command like so:

boltbackup backup -f ~/.backup ...

NB: ~/.backup is the default value for the -f flag.

The resulting file list is much as you'd expect if you're used to working with .gitignore, .dockerignore and friends..

• All files beginning with a period
• All files in the code directory ending with .go
• All files in the more_stuff directory, except files in the boring subdirectory.

It is important to note that the dirname of the Backupfile is prepended to every pattern in that file. So important that I'm going to write it again with emphasis.

The dirname of Backupfile is prepended to every pattern in that file

This might smell a bit, but it fits neatly with how I intend to use the tool. If I can find a compelling reason to change this behaviour I will.

TODO

A lot.