bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

tech4david · 2015-07-21 19:59:02

I once created my own backup script that backs up my manually-installed packages to a secret Gist, as this way I can easily restore to another computer and I don't have to back up to my own memory stick or hard drive. In my opinion saving stuff online is much easier than to external hard drives and memory sticks etc. as you don't have to worry about losing them or dding over them with a distro ISO (that's basically all I use my usb stick for anyway ).

It's the holiday right now for me and today I decided to make a version of this for anyone to use. It's much more advanced than the original version I was using; the original one was designed only for me so it didn't need to have as many features. For example, it could only back up packages and had no way to restore them.

I've put the new version on GitHub and you can find it here. Setting it up is pretty simple -- you just have to create a Gist* with any random content, then paste in the URL into bacpac and it'll do all the hard work for you. I hope that some of you find this helpful! Btw, I'm aware there are a couple of existing pacman backup programs but I don't think any of them are as simple as this to set-up.

*You can use any other Git server but Gist is probably the easiest to set-up for most users and it's also free.

Features

Back up manually-installed packages, /etc/pacman.conf and /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Update the script automatically at any time
Don't need to manually use git if you don't want to; the script does everything for you

Not features

Automatically restore AUR packages (probably won't be implemented because people may want to modify PKGBUILDs first or change build options etc.)

Bugs

See here

Please try it out and report any issues here on the forum or on GitHub! Enjoy

TL;DR get it here!

Last edited by tech4david (2015-08-01 20:02:05)

benoliver999 · 2015-07-24 13:54:13

I like this but I must confess, giving up my github password makes me nervous...!

tech4david · 2015-07-24 13:58:35

benoliver999 wrote:

I like this but I must confess, giving up my github password makes me nervous...!

You're only giving your GitHub password to git itself – the bacpac script doesn't actually read it at all. You can check the source code if you don't believe me

bartuka · 2015-08-01 13:18:33

Hello tech4david, I liked your idea and I have actually used already. Let me ask you more information about your script here. I did a online upload to my github account of 3 fles: package.list, mirrorlist and pacman.conf. Right?

And now when I re-install my system again I can use ./bacpac restore and the script will make the dowload of all the packages on the packages.list for me. That's correct?

Thank you.
Nice work though.

tech4david · 2015-08-01 19:42:34

bartuka wrote:

Hello tech4david, I liked your idea and I have actually used already. Let me ask you more information about your script here. I did a online upload to my github account of 3 fles: package.list, mirrorlist and pacman.conf. Right?
And now when I re-install my system again I can use ./bacpac restore and the script will make the dowload of all the packages on the packages.list for me. That's correct?

Thank you.
Nice work though.

Yep, you just have to clone the repository from Gist (or wherever you pushed it to if not Gist) and then, as you said, `./bacpac restore`. You'll need to at least have the bacpac dependencies installed before restoring or it might not work. Remember to `./bacpac update` occasionally to keep it up to date.

Important: check here for current bugs, as these may affect you. However you should be ok if you don't use custom repositories; the other 2 bugs are less likely to occur usually.

-- David

Last edited by tech4david (2015-08-01 19:56:43)

eNTi · 2015-10-21 19:09:14

hi.

i've installed bacpac via pacman... and well... i have no clue how to use it? i'v tried to:

root@eNTi $ bacpac init
processing init... (0 remaining in queue)
error: failed to find init

what gives?

tech4david · 2015-10-21 19:40:54

eNTi wrote:

hi.
i've installed bacpac via pacman... and well... i have no clue how to use it? i'v tried to:
root@eNTi $ bacpac init
processing init... (0 remaining in queue)
error: failed to find init
what gives?

Hi, the bacpac you have installed is a different project with the same name. To install this, run the following in a terminal:

cd <some directory>
git clone https://github.com/tech4david/bacpac
cd bacpac
./bacpac init

BTW, you'll need a GitHub account (or a git server you have access to) for the setup process.

I chose not to use an AUR package because it would take more effort to restore packages on a new system -- with this approach, you simply need to clone your personal repository and run a command to restore your packages.

eNTi · 2015-10-22 07:16:01

oh... thank you for the explanation. this situation is extremely confusing tbh.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-07-21 19:59:02

bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#2 2015-07-24 13:54:13

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#3 2015-07-24 13:58:35

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#4 2015-08-01 13:18:33

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#5 2015-08-01 19:42:34

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#6 2015-10-21 19:09:14

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#7 2015-10-21 19:40:54

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

#8 2015-10-22 07:16:01

Re: bacpac: Backup script for pacman config and packages

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