[Borgbackup] Borg client vs. server vs. NAS-like Borg server

[Thorsten Schöning]

Hi all,

I have one server hosting VMs and one NAS-like device for backup
purposes providing necessary storage. That device exposes SSH with
RSYNC and especially Borg. As I want encrypted backups, Borg seems
superior over SSHFS+ECRYPTFS for the backup storage.

I would like to have a setup where I have one server pulling backups
from multiple different VMs, as I did that in the past with a NAS, SSH
and RSYNC. Additionally, this way I hope only one instance of Borg
needs to have access to all repos, their encryption keys and
passphrases. Regarding your FAQ, encryption is handled "client-side":

> The Borg server is doing storage-related low-level repo operations
> (get, put, commit, check, compact), while the Borg client does the
> high-level stuff: deduplication, encryption, compression, dealing
> with archives, backups, restores, etc., which reduces the amount of
> data that goes over the network.

https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/faq.html?what-is-the-difference-between-a-repo-on-an-external-hard-drive-vs-repo-on-a-server#what-is-the-difference-between-a-repo-on-an-external-hard-drive-vs-repo-on-a-server

In my setup, the Borg server would be the one running on the NAS-like
device providing backup storage, correct? The Borg client would then
be the one running on the VM-host backing up individual VMs.

Your docs describe two setups for PULL: SSHFS and ssh-agent. The
former has problems with unstable inodes, while the latter already
involves two instances of Borg as client and server. Additionally, I'm
not able to run arbitrary code on the backup storage.

So, with ssh-agent, the server would need to be the one of the
NAS-like storrage device, correct? In which case the client would need
to run within VMs, which would force me to make passphrases etc.
available to VMs, which I would like to avoid.

Or is there some way to make the Borg running in the VM client speak to
the Borg running on the VM host so that is acting as the client
compared to the Borg server on the NAS-like device?

Besides unstable inodes, does SSHFS imply any further restrictions
like not being able to backup hard-links? I've read one create those,
but they are handled as different files when queried.

Are there any other easy to implement, SSH-foccussed PULL-setups?
Something more like SSH+RSYNC used in the past? Some host logging into
some other, executing Borg to transfer files using the already
existing connection instead of creating a new one like in the setup
using "ssh-agent"?

Thanks!

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Thorsten Schöning

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Für Rückfragen stehe ich Ihnen sehr gerne zur Verfügung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Thorsten Schöning


Tel: 05151 9468 0
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