Build it on this machine.

You need Go to compile the program, and restic to store the archive. BackupBinder does not download restic for you.

Build

From a checkout of the repository:

git clone https://github.com/mikeybeck/BackupBinder.git
cd BackupBinder
go build -o bin/backupbinder ./cmd/backupbinder

The examples below assume you are in that directory and the binary is bin/backupbinder.

Where the data goes

Runs, the registry, site files, and secrets live in one data directory. In this checkout that directory is var/. Pass --home, or set BACKUPBINDER_HOME, to put it somewhere else.

Leave var/ and .tools/ out of git. var/secrets/ holds the restic password and destination credentials, mode 0600.

Restic

Restic is a separate program. BackupBinder looks for it in this order:

  1. BACKUPBINDER_RESTIC, when that variable is set. The path has to be a file.
  2. .tools/restic in this checkout, when that file exists.
  3. restic on PATH.

A backup needs restic. The other tools below are for particular kinds of copy.

Rclone, rsync, and ssh

Google Drive uses rclone. The lookup is the same shape: BACKUPBINDER_RCLONE if set, then .tools/rclone, then rclone on PATH. A local backup, and copies to SFTP, disk, S3, or B2, do not need rclone.

A site that lives on a server is copied here with rsync over SSH, then archived. Those two programs come from the system. SFTP uses the SSH keys already on this machine. There is no field for an SSH password.

See what this machine has

doctor prints the data directory, whether restic, rclone, rsync, and ssh were found, an MCP config, and the cron line you would install yourself. It runs when restic is missing. It does not install anything.

./bin/backupbinder doctor

The backup path is ready when restic is found. mcp does not start until then. The cron line in the report is text for you to install. doctor does not add it to crontab.

Open the browser

serve binds to this machine only.

./bin/backupbinder serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 47831

Then open http://127.0.0.1:47831/. From there, choose Set up a backup. The first backup page is the same walk, from the command line.

License

BackupBinder is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. The text is the LICENSE file in the repository.