Usage and Configuration

Giback needs a configuration file describing what files you want to backup and to which repository they should be pushed to. Below is an example of a configuration file that defines two Backup Units, notes and photos:

units:
- id: notes
  repository: ssh://git@github.com:my_user/my_personal_notes.git
  author_name: John Doe
  author_email: johndoe@example.com
  commit_message: 'Backing up with Giback.'
  files:
  - "/home/john_doe/Documents/*.txt"
  - "/home/john_doe/Documents/*.org"
  exclude:
  - "/home/john_doe/Documents/unimportant_notes.txt"
- id: photos
  repository: ssh://git@github.com:my_user/photos.git
  author_name: John Doe
  author_email: johndoe@example.com
  commit_message: 'Backing up with Giback.'
  files:
  - "/home/john_doe/Documents/*.jpg"
  - "/home/john_doe/Documents/*.png"

Given these two Backup Units defined above, we can just command Giback at any time to backup everything:

$ giback all

In case we wanted to backup a single Backup Unit, say notes, instead of all:

$ giback notes

Backup Units’ Configuration Parameters

id

An ID that identifies a Backup Unit.

repository

The Git repository to which your backup files will be pushed.

author_name

The author’s name to which commits will be associated.

author_email

The author’s email.

commit_message

A commit message.

files

A list of files that will pushed to your backup repository. Absolute paths should be used. Glob Patterns are supported when you want to backup multiple files in the same directory or that have the same extension.

exclude

Like files, this takes a list of files, only that those files will be ignored and not pushed to your backup repository.

ssh_key

Absolute path to a SSH key. If this parameter is not defined, your user’s default SSH key will be used (like git normally does).

Command Line Options

-w: Path to a workspace. Use it if you don’t want your workspace to be “/home/user/.giback”. All repositories will be kept there.
-c: Path to a configuration file. Use it if you want a configuration file that’s not located at the default path “/home/user/.giback.yml”.
-v: By default giback prints useful log messages describing its operations as it runs. It doesn’t however show the output of the git command it runs. With this flag all git output will be visible. This is specifically useful for debugging.