Program Description

AutoArchive is a simple utility to help create backups more easily. The idea of the program is that all essential information for creating a single backup—such as list of directories that should be archived, the archive name, etc.—is stored in a single file – the archive specification file. It can use tar for creating archives, it has a command line interface and supports incremental backups.

Archive specification files, also called “.aa files” are normally stored in a predefined location from where they are processed by the aa command which results to creating of a corresponding backup for each.

Command autoarchive is alias for aa; these commands are equivalent.

Usage

aa [options] [command] [AA_SPEC …]
autoarchive [options] [command] [AA_SPEC …]

Most of the options can be specified also in configuration files and in the archive specification file (by using the long option form and leaving out leading dashes) – see Configuration File and Archive Specification File for complete list of options that can be specified there. Command line options has higher priority than options in configuration files but lower priority than the ones in the archive specification file. --force-* options are available for the purpose of overriding some of the options specified in the .aa file.

Boolean options can also have a negation form defined. It has the “no-” prefix before the option name. For example: --incremental vs. --no-incremental. The negation form has always higher priority than the normal form.

List of command line options

Arguments:

AA_SPEC

Archive specification. It determines the archive specification file that shall be processed. None, single or multiple AA_SPEC arguments are allowed. If option --all or command --list is specified then no AA_SPEC argument is required. Otherwise at least single AA_SPEC argument is required. If it contains the “.aa” extension then it is taken as the path to an archive specification file. Otherwise, if specified without the extension, the corresponding .aa file is searched in the archive specifications directory.

Commands:

Commands for program’s operations. The default operation is the backup creation if no command is specified.

--list

Show configured and orphaned archives.

--purge

Purge stored data for an orphaned archive.

--version

Show program’s version number and exit.

-h, --help

Show this help message and exit.

Archiving options:

-a ARCHIVER, --archiver=ARCHIVER

Specify archiver type. Supported types are: ‘tar’, ‘targz’, ‘tarbz2’, ‘tarxz’, ‘tarzst’, ‘tar_internal’, ‘targz_internal’, ‘tarbz2_internal’ (default: targz).

-c NUM, --compression-level=NUM

Compression strength level. If not specified, default behaviour of underlying compression program will be used. Valid range is from 0 to 9.

-d DIR_PATH, --dest-dir=DIR_PATH

Directory where the backup will be created (default: <current directory>).

--overwrite-at-start

If enabled, backups are overwritten at the start of creation. If disabled (default), backups are overwritten at the end of creation. Enabling this option can be useful with big backups and low free space on the backup volume.

Let’s say aa data command will create backup /backups/data.tar.gz. If a file with the same name already exists in /backups then – in case this option is enabled – it will be overwritten as soon as creation of the new backup starts. If the option is not enabled the new backup will be first created under a temporary name leaving the old backup untouched. After the new backup is fully created it is renamed to /backups/data.tar.gz overwriting the old one.

Incremental archiving options:

-i, --incremental

Perform incremental backup.

-l LEVEL, --level=LEVEL

Specify backup level which should be created. All information about higher levels—if any exists—will be erased. If not present, the next level in a row will be created.

--restarting

Turn on backup level restarting. See other *restart-* options to configure the restarting behaviour.

--restart-after-level=LEVEL

Maximal backup level. If reached, it will be restarted back to a lower level (which is typically level 1 but it depends on --max-restart-level-size) (default: 10).

--restart-after-age=DAYS

Number of days after which the backup level is restarted. Similarly to --restart-after-level it will be restarted to level 1 or higher.

--full-restart-after-count=COUNT

Number of backup level restarts after which the level is restarted to 0.

--full-restart-after-age=DAYS

Number of days after which the backup level is restarted to 0.

--max-restart-level-size=PERCENTAGE

Maximal percentage size of a backup (of level > 0) to which level is allowed restart to. The size is percentage of size of the level 0 backup file. If a backup of particular level has its size bigger than defined percentage, restart to that level will not be allowed.

--remove-obsolete-backups

Turn on removing backups of levels that are no longer valid due to the backup level restart. All backups of the backup level higher than the one currently being created will be removed.

Options for keeping old backups

-k, --keep-old-backups

Turn on backup keeping. When a backup is about to be overwritten, it is renamed instead. If --incremental is enabled it applies to all corresponding increments. The new name is created by inserting a keeping ID in front of backup file(s) extension. The keeping ID is a string from interval ‘aa’, ‘ab’, …, ‘zy’, ‘zz’ where ‘aa’ represents most recent kept backup.

--number-of-old-backups=NUM

Number of old backups to keep when --keep-old-backups is enabled (default: 1).

Command execution options

--command-before-all-backups=COMMAND_BEFORE_ALL

Arbitrary command that will be executed before backup creation for the set of selected archives. The command will be executed only once in a single invocation of AutoArchive.

--command-after-all-backups=COMMAND_AFTER_ALL

Arbitrary command that will be executed after backup creation for the set of selected archives. The command will be executed only once in a single invocation of AutoArchive.

--command-before-backup=COMMAND_BEFORE

Arbitrary command to execute prior to each backup creation.

--command-after-backup=COMMAND_AFTER

Arbitrary command to execute after each backup creation.

Format of COMMAND_* arguments is:

command [arguments]

If arguments are specified then the whole expression should be enclosed in quotes. For example:

--command-before-backup="foo arg1"

Additionally if an argument contains spaces it should be enclosed as well:

--command-after-backup="foo arg1 'arg with spaces 2' arg3"

General options:

-v, --verbose

Turn on verbose output.

-q, --quiet

Turn on quiet output. Only errors will be shown. If --quiet is turned on at the same level as --verbose (e. g. both are specified on the command line) then --quiet has higher priority than --verbose.

--all

Operate on all configured archives (additional to those specified as AA_SPEC arguments). Default for --list if no AA_SPEC is specified. See also --archive-specs-dir.

--archive-specs-dir=DIR_PATH

Directory where archive specification files will be searched for (default: ~/.config/aa/archive_specs).

--user-config-file=FILE_PATH

Alternate user configuration file (default: ~/.config/aa/aa.conf).

--user-config-dir=DIR_PATH

Alternate user configuration directory (default: ~/.config/aa).

Force options:

Options to override standard options defined in archive specification files.

--force-archiver=ARCHIVER

Force archiver type. See --archiver option for supported types.

--force-incremental

Force incremental backup.

--force-restarting

Force backup level restarting.

--force-compression-level=NUM

Force compression strength level.

--force-dest-dir=DIR_PATH

Force the directory where the backup will be created.

--force-command-before-backup=COMMAND_BEFORE

Force configuration of the command to execute prior to each backup creation.

--force-command-after-backup=COMMAND_AFTER

Force configuration of the command to execute after each backup creation.

--force-overwrite-at-start

Force backup overwriting behavior.

Negation options:

Negative variants of standard boolean options.

--no-incremental

Disable incremental backup.

--no-restarting

Turn off backup level restarting.

--no-remove-obsolete-backups

Turn off obsolete backups removing.

--no-keep-old-backups

Turn off backup keeping.

--no-all

Do not operate on all configured archives.

--no-overwrite-at-start

Do not overwrite backup at the start of creation. Overwrite after the new backup is created.

Exit Codes

AutoArchive can return following exit codes:

  • 0: The operation finished successfully.

  • 1: The operation finished with minor (warnings) or major (errors) issues.

Files

~/.config/aa/aa.conf

User configuration file. See Configuration File for its description.

~/.config/aa/archive_specs/

Default directory that contains archive specification files. See Archive Specification File for description of the .aa file format.

~/.config/aa/snapshots/*.snar

Files that stores information about incremental backup. They are created by GNU tar archiver.

~/.config/aa/storage/*.realm

Application internal persistent storage. It stores various data needed to be preserved between program runs. For example: last backup level restart, number of backup level restart, etc.

/etc/aa/aa.conf

System configuration file. See Configuration File for its description.