Elkarbackup Maintenance Discontinued and DEB repository disabled

[xezpeleta]

Hello!

We've got an important update to share with you. As you may have noticed, there haven't been any updates to Elkarbackup since 2021, and we wanted to make it official. We've decided to stop actively maintaining the project.

This means that going forward, we won't be providing any further updates, bug fixes, or new features.

At the same time, we will be disabling the DEB packages repository. This means that starting 10th august, you will no longer be able to access or download deb packages directly from our repository. However, we want to assure you that the source code will still be available for you to use and explore.

Thank you very much

[JoshuaPettus]

So sorry to hear that. Though I pretty much expected it at this point. Guess I'm going to have to figure out another backup solution at some point...once PHP7.X becomes completely unviable. Shame too, this one served me well for quite a few years.

[cyberfarer]

That's unfortunate. It's a nice package. I do understand.

On Tue, 18 Jul 2023 at 15:50, Joshua Pettus @.***> wrote:

So sorry to hear that. Though I pretty much expected it at this point. Guess I'm going to have to figure out another backup solution at some point...once PHP7.X becomes completely unviable. Shame too, this one served me well for quite a few years.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/elkarbackup/elkarbackup/issues/657#issuecomment-1640906928, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABYQRPNWZGG7YEQ7TRMQ3Q3XQ3SIZANCNFSM6AAAAAAZ5JGWZI . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: @.***>

[54mu3l]

Are there any alternatives you would recommend?

[JoshuaPettus]

I successfully moved over to restic. https://restic.net/ Seems to be a very healthy project with very good performance and security. Do bear in mind, it's a push solution where as elkar was a pull solution. But that has it's own benefit where the only thing you need for the "server" is to establish an sftp connection.

I can tell you the compression ratios for backups are fantastic.

[cyberfarer]

I am migrating to urbackup.

On Thu, Aug 10, 2023, 1:22 p.m. Joshua Pettus @.***> wrote:

I successfully moved over to restic. https://restic.net/ Seems to be a very healthy project with very good performance and security. Do bear in mind, it's a push solution where as elkar was a pull solution.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/elkarbackup/elkarbackup/issues/657#issuecomment-1673615861, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABYQRPLAUAWM4J3NI2CDRTDXUUKG3ANCNFSM6AAAAAAZ5JGWZI . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[54mu3l]

I'm looking for an alternative with the following features:

• it should be free
• run commands before backup
  • I use it to create a backup of a database before elkar then backups the created backup-file
• backup should be a simple copy of the original data (no proprietary format)
  • enables me to restore it in different ways (or use the data in the development process)
• web interface
  • see the status of all backups in one dashboard
  • maybe even config the clients/jobs/backups/policies
  • maybe even browse the backuped files
• pull solution
  • I really like the approach of elkarbackup where the server initiates backups and logs in to the client (via SSH)
  • I don't like to install a client on every device that has some data I need to backup...

BorgBackup and restic don't have a web interface. Duplicati has a web interface but is a push solution and doesn't allow me to run commands before a backup is started. UrBackup has a web interface but it needs a server+client installation and it seems that its purpose is more to backup a (whole) client.

I don't want to backup a whole client, I want to backup a lot of different directories, each with a different policies (since some change their data every second others only every couple of months). I want to backup databases. I want to backup docker volumes. Etc. Elkarbackup did exactly that...

In the end I'm open to any suggestions you might have. Thank you!

[danielo515]

I'm in the same situation as @54mu3l If anyone finds a viable replacement, I will be very happy to know

[bverkron]

I'm looking for an alternative with the following features:

• it should be free

• run commands before backup

  • I use it to create a backup of a database before elkar then backups the created backup-file

• backup should be a simple copy of the original data (no proprietary format)

  • enables me to restore it in different ways (or use the data in the development process)

• web interface

  • see the status of all backups in one dashboard
  • maybe even config the clients/jobs/backups/policies
  • maybe even browse the backuped files

• pull solution

  • I really like the approach of elkarbackup where the server initiates backups and logs in to the client (via SSH)
  • I don't like to install a client on every device that has some data I need to backup...

BorgBackup and restic don't have a web interface. Duplicati has a web interface but is a push solution and doesn't allow me to run commands before a backup is started. UrBackup has a web interface but it needs a server+client installation and it seems that its purpose is more to backup a (whole) client.

I don't want to backup a whole client, I want to backup a lot of different directories, each with a different policies (since some change their data every second others only every couple of months). I want to backup databases. I want to backup docker volumes. Etc. Elkarbackup did exactly that...

In the end I'm open to any suggestions you might have. Thank you!

@54mu3l I have almost the same criteria as you (although I don't care if it's a push solution and actually kind of prefer that for a few reasons, but I'm open to pull solutions too). Did you find anything? Kopia seems to check a lot of the boxes (though is push) but I don't like that it has forced encryption that can't be disabled.

[54mu3l]

After hours of trying different solutions I decided to stick with Elkarbackup for now...

This is a temporary decision until I find a viable solution. For now it works and from a security standpoint I don't need to worry too much, since it runs on internal networks only.

But I'm still on the lookout for an alternative.

[bverkron]

There is a long thread here someone recently started. Might be some options you haven't considered but so far Elkar is still the best match for me, even in that long list.

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18k1scz/backup_software_for_docker_volumes_and_bind_mounts/

[JoshuaPettus]

A web interface is actually severely limiting, although elkar did let you use your own scripts which were practically a requirement. The truth is. To do a proper full backup on a live linux system one should use LVM or BTRFS snapshots prior to doing the backup. Then you have to make use of something like proot to make the backup consistent with the correct location and not the mount point of the snapshot. All this requires basic scripting to do right. The only other option to do a full system backup, is to ignore a bunch of state files, which makes it so to do a full recovery, you have to install the OS and then place your backup on top of that. How useful is that?

If I'm going to be doing a little bash scripting anyway, then what's the point of the web interface? Honestly, as I was finding out these things in my day to day use with elkar, I was using the web interface less and less and just using rsync and ssh to restore stuff directly.

My point is, if there is an area to "compromise," it's the web interface. After all, It's the web interface maintenance, or more specifically the lack of PHP maintenance, that is the problem from using elkarbackup indefinitely. It's an added security and UX burden that the other projects look like they don't want to tackle. I can tell you the command line interface of restic is really pretty simple. Its just one command to view all the backups in a repo with a few modifiers to filter what you want. Is that so different to viewing on a web browser? It's through scripting that one will find flexibility that is required for most situations. Its actually a lot easier then working with a limited UI.

Then there is the concern about being forced to use encrypted backups. I really don't think this is a problem and I recommend people just embrace it. Even at home, If your external backup hard drive ever gets stolen, what then?

[item78]

Is there a copy of the DEB packages repository? I loved elkarbackup a long time... and I want to install on debian bullseye. Thank you!

EDIT: https://github.com/elkarbackup/elkarbackup/releases