ibk

Incremental Backup CLI with tar

Motivation

We don't want to lose data. That is the biggest motivation to backup. In addition, we don't want to waste our storage by backups. That is the main reason to use an incremental backup.

Although an amazing file system such as ZFS supports snapshot functionality, every OS doesn't support it. Thus, ibk uses snapshot functionality of tar since tar is widely installed, used and matured. ibk assist you to backup incrementally using tar inside. This means you can backup/restore with the natural tar command.

Requirements

Linux

• tar

macOS

• brew install gnu-tar

Installation

Get binaries from GitHub Releases

Usage

Backup

ibk backup ./mydir

Then, you have mydir.ibk directory which contains .tar and .snar files as follows.

• ./mydir.ibk/mydir_20190302_0757_21_407103_UTC.tar
• ./mydir.ibk/mydir.snar

You can also use backup -b mybackup or backup --backup-path mybackup to specify backup directory path not default ooo.ibk.
Specify --local-time to use local time not UTC.

Incremental Backup

When you type the command again, the backup should be conducted incrementally.

ibk backup ./mydir

Restore

ibk restore ./mydir.ibk/

Then, you have ibk_restored directory which contains the following hierarchy.

• ibk_restored/mydir

You can also use restore -r myrestore or restore --restored-path myrestore to specify restored directory path not default ibk_restored.

Backup with only tar

(NOTE: You should replace tar with gtar in macOS)

# First backup
mkdir mybackup
tar -g ./mybackup/mydir.snar -cf ./mybackup/mydir_first.tar ./mydir

## Second backup (incremental)
tar -g ./mybackup/mydir.snar -cf ./mybackup/mydir_second.tar ./mydir

## Third backup (incremental)
tar -g ./mybackup/mydir.snar -cf ./mybackup/mydir_third.tar ./mydir

Restore with only tar

cd mybackup
tar -g mydir.snar -xf mydir_first.tar
tar -g mydir.snar -xf mydir_second.tar
tar -g mydir.snar -xf mydir_third.tar

Then, you have ./mybackup/mydir.