Ubuntu Manpage: borg-recreate - Re-create archives

NAME

       borg-recreate - Re-create archives

SYNOPSIS

       borg [common options] recreate [options] [REPOSITORY_OR_ARCHIVE] [PATH...]

DESCRIPTION

Recreate the contents of existing archives.

recreate is a potentially dangerous function and might lead to data loss (if used wrongly). BE VERY
CAREFUL!

Important: Repository disk space is not freed until you run borg compact.

--exclude, --exclude-from, --exclude-if-present, --keep-exclude-tags and PATH have the exact same
semantics as in "borg create", but they only check for files in the archives and not in the local file
system. If PATHs are specified, the resulting archives will only contain files from these PATHs.

Note that all paths in an archive are relative, therefore absolute patterns/paths will not match
(--exclude, --exclude-from, PATHs).

--recompress allows one to change the compression of existing data in archives. Due to how Borg stores
compressed size information this might display incorrect information for archives that were not recreated
at the same time. There is no risk of data loss by this.

--chunker-params will re-chunk all files in the archive, this can be used to have upgraded Borg 0.xx or
Attic archives deduplicate with Borg 1.x archives.

USE WITH CAUTION. Depending on the PATHs and patterns given, recreate can be used to permanently delete
files from archives. When in doubt, use --dry-run --verbose --list to see how patterns/PATHS are
interpreted. See list_item_flags in borg create for details.

The archive being recreated is only removed after the operation completes. The archive that is built
during the operation exists at the same time at "<ARCHIVE>.recreate". The new archive will have a
different archive ID.

With --target the original archive is not replaced, instead a new archive is created.

When rechunking (or recompressing), space usage can be substantial - expect at least the entire
deduplicated size of the archives using the previous chunker (or compression) params.

If you recently ran borg check --repair and it had to fix lost chunks with all-zero replacement chunks,
please first run another backup for the same data and re-run borg check --repair afterwards to heal any
archives that had lost chunks which are still generated from the input data.

Important: running borg recreate to re-chunk will remove the chunks_healthy metadata of all items with
replacement chunks, so healing will not be possible any more after re-chunking (it is also unlikely it
would ever work: due to the change of chunking parameters, the missing chunk likely will never be seen
again even if you still have the data that produced it).

OPTIONS

       See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

   arguments
       REPOSITORY_OR_ARCHIVE
              repository or archive to recreate

       PATH   paths to recreate; patterns are supported

   options
       --list output verbose list of items (files, dirs, ...)

       --filter STATUSCHARS
              only display items with the given status characters (listed in borg create --help)

       -n, --dry-run
              do not change anything

       -s, --stats
              print statistics at end

   Include/Exclude options
       -e PATTERN, --exclude PATTERN
              exclude paths matching PATTERN

       --exclude-from EXCLUDEFILE
              read exclude patterns from EXCLUDEFILE, one per line

       --pattern PATTERN
              include/exclude paths matching PATTERN

       --patterns-from PATTERNFILE
              read include/exclude patterns from PATTERNFILE, one per line

       --exclude-caches
              exclude  directories that contain a CACHEDIR.TAG file ( <http://www.bford.info/cachedir/spec.html>
              )

       --exclude-if-present NAME
              exclude directories that are tagged by containing a filesystem object with the given NAME

       --keep-exclude-tags
              if tag objects are specified with --exclude-if-present, don't omit the tag objects themselves from
              the backup archive

   Archive options
       --target TARGET
              create a new archive with the name ARCHIVE, do not replace existing archive (only  applies  for  a
              single archive)

       -c SECONDS, --checkpoint-interval SECONDS
              write checkpoint every SECONDS seconds (Default: 1800)

       --comment COMMENT
              add a comment text to the archive

       --timestamp TIMESTAMP
              manually  specify the archive creation date/time (UTC, yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss format). alternatively,
              give a reference file/directory.

       -C COMPRESSION, --compression COMPRESSION
              select compression algorithm, see the output of the "borg help compression" command for details.

       --recompress MODE
              recompress data chunks according to MODE  and  --compression.  Possible  modes  are  if-different:
              recompress  if  current  compression  is  with a different compression algorithm (the level is not
              considered); always: recompress even if current compression is with the same compression algorithm
              (use this to change the compression level); and never: do  not  recompress  (use  this  option  to
              explicitly  prevent  recompression).  If  no MODE is given, if-different will be used. Not passing
              --recompress is equivalent to "--recompress never".

       --chunker-params PARAMS
              rechunk using  given  chunker  parameters  (ALGO,  CHUNK_MIN_EXP,  CHUNK_MAX_EXP,  HASH_MASK_BITS,
              HASH_WINDOW_SIZE) or default to use the chunker defaults. default: do not rechunk

EXAMPLES

          # Make old (Attic / Borg 0.xx) archives deduplicate with Borg 1.x archives.
          # Archives created with Borg 1.1+ and the default chunker params are skipped
          # (archive ID stays the same).
          $ borg recreate /mnt/backup --chunker-params default --progress

          # Create a backup with little but fast compression
          $ borg create /mnt/backup::archive /some/files --compression lz4
          # Then compress it - this might take longer, but the backup has already completed,
          # so no inconsistencies from a long-running backup job.
          $ borg recreate /mnt/backup::archive --recompress --compression zlib,9

          # Remove unwanted files from all archives in a repository.
          # Note the relative path for the --exclude option - archives only contain relative paths.
          $ borg recreate /mnt/backup --exclude home/icke/Pictures/drunk_photos

          # Change archive comment
          $ borg create --comment "This is a comment" /mnt/backup::archivename ~
          $ borg info /mnt/backup::archivename
          Name: archivename
          Fingerprint: ...
          Comment: This is a comment
          ...
          $ borg recreate --comment "This is a better comment" /mnt/backup::archivename
          $ borg info /mnt/backup::archivename
          Name: archivename
          Fingerprint: ...
          Comment: This is a better comment
          ...

AUTHOR