Octarchive

Simple tool to back up all repos on a GitHub/Gitea account to a local folder.

Overview

Octarchive is a simple backup utility that clones all repos from a GitHub/Gitea account to a local folder for storage.

It enables you too ...

• Backup your work: In case your GitHub account is breached or gets banned, Octarchive ensures you always have a local copy available.
• Mirror your account: If your internet connection is slow or GitHub is banned in your jurisdiction, you can use Octarchive and a web server to mirror your repos.
• Automate processes: By exposing all of your repos to the filesystem, otherwise tedious processes such as bumping copyright dates or updating names become easy.

Installation

Containerized

You can get the OCI image like so:

$ podman pull ghcr.io/pojntfx/octarchive

Natively

Static binaries are available on GitHub releases.

On Linux, you can install them like so:

$ curl -L -o /tmp/octarchive "https://github.com/pojntfx/octarchive/releases/latest/download/octarchive.linux-$(uname -m)"
$ sudo install /tmp/octarchive /usr/local/bin

On macOS, you can use the following:

$ curl -L -o /tmp/octarchive "https://github.com/pojntfx/octarchive/releases/latest/download/octarchive.darwin-$(uname -m)"
$ sudo install /tmp/octarchive /usr/local/bin

On Windows, the following should work (using PowerShell as administrator):

PS> Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/pojntfx/octarchive/releases/latest/download/octarchive.windows-x86_64.exe -OutFile \Windows\System32\octarchive.exe

You can find binaries for more operating systems and architectures on GitHub releases.

Usage

1. Do a manual backup with octarchive

First, export your GitHub (or Gitea) API token like so:

$ export GITHUB_TOKEN='mygithubtoken'

If you're using Gitea, also export your API endpoint like so:

$ export GITHUB_API='https://try.gitea.io/api/'

Now, start the manual backup, including all the repos of the organizations that you're part of:

$ octarchive --orgs
{"level":"info","time":"2022-08-15T00:25:39+02:00","message":"Getting user"}
{"level":"info","time":"2022-08-15T00:25:40+02:00","message":"Getting organizations for user"}
# ...
Cloning   6% [========>                                                                                                                                                           ] (16/263, 7 repo/s) [1s:32s]{"level":"info","cloneURL":"https://github.com/pojntfx/dwm.git","filePath":"/home/pojntfx/.local/share/octarchive/var/lib/octarchive/data/1660518181/pojntfx/dwm","time":"2022-08-15T01:03:09+02:00","message":"Cloning repo"}
# ...

You should now find the repos in ${HOME}/.local/share/octarchive/var/lib/octarchive/data.

For more information, see the reference.

2. Schedule backups with systemd Timers

In most cases, you'll want to schedule backups periodically; an excellent way to do so is to use systemd Timers. To schedule a weekly backup of all of your repos, run the following:

$ sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/octarchive.service<<'EOT'
[Unit]
Description=Octarchive backup

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/octarchive --orgs
Environment="HOME=/root"
Environment="GITHUB_TOKEN=mygithubtoken"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOT
$ sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/octarchive.timer<<'EOT'
[Unit]
Description=Run Octarchive weekly

[Timer]
OnCalendar=weekly
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
EOT
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable octarchive.timer --now

Note that this will create a fresh directory every time you run the backup, which might fill up your disk space quite quickly; if you want to instead remove the old backup every time you do a new one, append --timestamp current to the ExecStart line of the service.

You should find the repos in /root/.local/share/octarchive/var/lib/octarchive/data.

For more information, see the reference.

🚀 That's it! We hope you enjoy using Octarchive.

Reference

Command Line Arguments

$ octarchive --help
Usage of octarchive:
  -api string
        GitHub/Gitea API endpoint to use (can also be set using the GITHUB_API env variable) (default "https://api.github.com/")
  -concurrency int
        Maximum amount of repositories to clone concurrently (default 20)
  -dst string
        Base directory to clone repos into (default "/home/pojntfx/.local/share/octarchive/var/lib/octarchive/data")
  -fresh
        Clear timestamp directory before starting to clone
  -orgs
        Also clone repos of all orgs that the user is part of
  -timestamp string
        Timestamp to use as the directory for this clone session (default "1660513831")
  -token string
        GitHub/Gitea API access token (can also be set using the GITHUB_TOKEN env variable)
  -verbose int
        Verbosity level (0 is disabled, default is info, 7 is trace) (default 5)

Environment Variables

You can set the following environment variables, which correspond to the values that can be set using the following flags:

Acknowledgements

• go-git/go-git provides the Git library.

To all the rest of the authors who worked on the dependencies used: Thanks a lot!

Contributing

To contribute, please use the GitHub flow and follow our Code of Conduct.

To build and start a development version of Octarchive locally, run the following:

$ git clone https://github.com/pojntfx/octarchive.git
$ cd octarchive
$ make depend
$ make && sudo make install
$ export GITHUB_TOKEN='mygithubtoken'
$ octarchive

Have any questions or need help? Chat with us on Matrix!

License

Octarchive (c) 2022 Felicitas Pojtinger and contributors

SPDX-License-Identifier: AGPL-3.0