Backups and Recovery

Backups and Recovery

Noob mode

Run a guided backup:

binman backup

BinMan asks which managed apps to include, whether virtual environments should be kept, where to write the archive, and then shows a summary before asking for final approval.

Restore an archive:

binman restore ./binman_backup-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.zip

Rollback to a previous installation snapshot:

binman rollback

Pro mode

Backups contain BinMan-curated application directories from ~/.local/share/binman/apps and their matching command shims from ~/.local/bin. Unrelated standalone files in ~/.local/bin are deliberately excluded. Virtual environments are included by default because rebuilding one may be expensive or impossible later.

Useful options include:

binman backup --apps DemoApp,kari-builder
binman backup --all --exclude-venvs
binman backup --all --force --output /path/to/archive.zip

--exclude-venvs, --no-venvs, and --lean omit common generated directories such as .venv, caches, build output, and dependency trees. ZIP archives are written directly from the selected app paths, avoiding a second full-size staging copy in /tmp.

Backups are snapshots, not magic time machines. Restore can overwrite existing managed paths only when the appropriate force behaviour is selected, and a restore should be followed by binman verify.

Bundle

binman bundle

A bundle packages the curated BinMan app store and matching shims for transfer to another machine. It may still be large if your curated apps contain large virtual environments or application assets. “Curated” means BinMan-managed, not “K.A.R.I. has personally compressed every byte into a dainty little parcel.”