How do I restore a backup created with borgmatic?

I backed up my system with borgmatic, I excluded the directory

/home /dev /proc /sys /tmp /run/media /lost+found

what tool or method should I use to do a system level restore.

:warning: Disclaimer: I don’t use Borgmatic, so… :wink:

In addition to the link above, which documentation did you read before running the backup? Does that documentation not also include information about how to restore from the backup?

I’ve read the official maticborg documentation, but I can’t understand some of it. Also I have read the rsync related information and so far I have not succeeded in restoring the backup.

Are you booting off something else to do the restore?

No, I recovered directly from within the system

I’m a newbie and I’m trying different recovery software to find the right one for me, currently I’m considering borg and snapper for this and I’m getting familiar with using them.

I don’t think that is possible. It probably isn’t able to overwrite all the data of the running system.

Yes, I think so, recovering from outside the system, I use Clonezilla and it works very well. I need a software for internal system recovery now, I’m currently trying borg and may try snapper later

borg is data backup software. While you can certainly use it to recover an entire system it isn’t going to be “push-button simple”. However, it does have a bunch of other features useful for data backup like encryption and deduplication.

snapper is used for taking snapshots of btrfs subvolumes and/or lvm volumes but it stores those snapshots on the same device so it won’t help if the device fails.(Unless you replicate the snapshots elsewhere.)

Are you sure that exists? With snapper you could boot off a different snapshot and then overwrite the original root but you can’t just restore the original system in-place.

@dalto I’m not sure, like I said before, for whole system backup I use Clonezilla , it works well. But I need one inside the system, borg or snapper, because I’m new to this and I often have to try things in case I mess up the system or I need to revert back to before, I want to have a backup that works well.linux is fascinating, and I wish I could learn more. :blush:

If this is your use case and your filesystems are all btrfs, snapper is a better choice in my opinion.

No matter what, you can’t restore an entire system while booted into the running system though. You could, however, copy things out selectively with either borg or snapper.

@dalto
I have 2 separate eos installations on my physical computer, one ext4 and one btrfs, and I’m trying to figure out which backup system is better. But since I’m not too familiar with English, I’m having trouble reading the documentation, so I’ll often ask questions that might be easier for you guys. Please forgive me if I offend you in any way.

Feel free to ask questions. That is what we are here for.

Nothing you have said is even remotely offensive. :slightly_smiling_face:

“backup” is an interesting word in that many people use it to mean different things. To me, borg is a nearly ideal “backup” solution for your data. It supports deduplication, encryption, backup verification and compression.

That being said, from your description above, it doesn’t sound like data backup is what you are looking for. It sounds like system recovery snapshots are what you are looking for. This where software like timeshift and snapper excel. btrfs snapshots:

  • use much less disk space
  • are nearly instant
  • are much faster to access
  • if you install grub-btrfs you can boot off of snapshots directly

Yes, I think borg is better for backing up important data, I am now starting to try snapper as a system backup, anyway the basic use of borg I have learned. :ok_hand:

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