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Gigaquad VPS Backup Documentation

Gigaquad uses the open-source Borgbackup tool to automatically create encrypted backups of your entire VPS filesystem. Backups are stored in at least two geographically distinct locations and retained for up to 9 months.

This documentation details how to query and restore backups on your VPS using Gigaquad's gq-borg.sh CLI.

Summary / TL;DR

  1. IMPORTANT: Prerequisites

    • Use the sudo command to run as root e.g. sudo gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1.
    • Add the tag GQ_BB_REPO1 to the appropriate BorgBackup argument to select the primary repository.

  2. List available backup archives

    bash gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1

  3. List all files in a backup archive

    bash gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

  4. Extract all files from a backup archive

    bash gq-borg.sh extract GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

  5. Extract individual files from a backup archive

    bash gq-borg.sh extract GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01 example/file/path/in/archive.txt

  6. Get detailed information about a backup archive

    bash gq-borg.sh info GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

IMPORTANT: Prerequisites

Before executing any of the commands contained in this documentation, consider the following.

a) Run as the correct user :

Backups are owned and maintained by the root user, you must run the gq-borg.sh script as root. To do this, use the sudo command to e.g. sudo gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1

b) Selecting a backup repository :

Backups are stored in at least two geographically distinct locations, gq-borg.sh script stores the URLs for the BorgBackup repositories. Special tags placed in the command arguments will be substituted with the appropriate URL:

  1. To select the primary backup repository add the tag GQ_BB_REPO1 to the appropriate BorgBackup argument e.g. gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01.
  2. To select the secondary backup repository add the tag GQ_BB_REPO2 to the appropriate BorgBackup argument e.g. gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO2::2020-01-01.

List available backup archives

To view the backup archives available in a repository, run:

gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1

'borg list' docs

List all files in a backup archive

To view the files contained in a backup archive without restoring, run:

gq-borg.sh list GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

Notes :

  • 2020-01-01 at the end of the command is the name of the archive - change this to the name you are interested in. A list of available archives can be found by running the command above.

'borg list' docs

Extract all files from a backup archive

To extract/restore all the files contained in a backup archive, run:

gq-borg.sh extract GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

Notes :

  • 2020-01-01 at the end of the command is the name of the archive, change this to the name you are interested in. A list of available archives can be found by running the command above.

'borg extract' docs

Extract individual files from a backup archive

To extract/restore individual file(s) contained in a backup archive, run:

gq-borg.sh extract GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01 example/file/path/in/archive.txt

Notes :

  • example/file/path/in/archive.txt at the end of the command is the file path in the backup archive. A list of files in the archive can be obtained using the command above.

  • 2020-01-01 at the end of the command is the name of the archive, change this to the name you are interested in. A list of available archives can be found by running the command above.

'borg extract' docs

Get detailed information about a backup archive

To get detailed information about an archives size and how it was created, run:

gq-borg.sh info GQ_BB_REPO1::2020-01-01

Notes :

  • 2020-01-01 at the end of the command is the name of the archive, change this to the name you are interested in. A list of available archives can be found by running the command above.

'borg info' docs

Accessing the secondary backup server

The variable GQ_BB_REPO1 refers to the borg backup repository on the primary backup server. Every VPS has at least two locations it sends backups to. Use GQ_BB_REPO2 to access the secondary backup sever.