shallow-backup

shallow-backup lets you easily create lightweight backups of installed packages, applications, fonts and dotfiles, and automatically push them to a remote Git repository.

Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• A Word of Caution
• What can I back up?
• Customization
• Output Structure
• Inspiration
• Want to contribute?

Installation

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1. Install with pip3

   • $ pip3 install shallow-backup
   • $ shallow-backup

2. Download the shallow-backup binary from Releases tab.

Usage

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To start the interactive program, simply run $ shallow-backup.

shallow-backup was built with scripting in mind. Every feature that's supported in the interactive program is supported with command line args.

Usage: cli.py [OPTIONS]

  Easily back up installed packages, dotfiles, and more.
  You can edit which files are backed up in ~/.shallow-backup.

  Written by Aaron Lichtman (@alichtman).

Options:
  -all                         Full back up.
  -configs                     Back up app config files.
  -delete_config               Delete config file.
  -destroy_backup              Delete backup directory.
  -dotfiles                    Back up dotfiles.
  -fonts                       Back up installed fonts.
  --new_path TEXT              Input a new back up directory path.
  -old_path                    Skip setting new back up directory path prompt.
  -packages                    Back up package libraries.
  -reinstall_configs           Reinstall configs.
  -reinstall_dots              Reinstall dotfiles and dotfolders.
  -reinstall_fonts             Reinstall fonts.
  -reinstall_packages          Reinstall packages.
  -reinstall_all               Full reinstallation.
  --remote TEXT                Set remote URL for the git repo.
  -show                        Display config file.
  -v, --version                Display version and author information and
                               exit.
  -h, -help, --help            Show this message and exit.

A Word of Caution

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This backup tool is git-integrated, meaning that you can easily store your backups remotely (on GitHub, for example.) Dotfiles and configuration files may contain sensitive information like API keys and ssh keys, and you don't want to make those public. Public knowledge of specific packages on your system may put you at risk of attack. To make sure no sensitive files are uploaded accidentally, shallow-backup creates a .gitignore file if it can't find one in the directory. It excludes .ssh/ and .pypirc, as well as your package install lists by default. It's safe to remove these restrictions if you're pushing to a remote private repository, or you're only backing up locally. To do this, you should clear the .gitignore file without deleting it.

Tl;dr: If you choose to back up to a public repository, look at every file you're backing up to make sure you want it to be public.

What can I back up?

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By default, shallow-backup backs these up.

1. dotfiles and dotfolders.

   • .bashrc
   • .bash_profile
   • .gitconfig
   • .pypirc
   • .shallow-backup
   • .ssh/
   • .vim/
   • .zshrc

2. Development Related App Preferences

   • Atom
   • Sublime Text 2/3
   • Terminal.app
   • JetBrains IDEs
   • VS Code (Coming soon!)

3. Installed Packages

   • Atom Packages (apm)
   • brew and cask
   • cargo
   • gem
   • pip
   • npm
   • macports
   • Sublime Text 2/3 Packages
   • ~/Applications/ directory (macOS only)

4. User installed fonts.

Customization

If you'd like to modify which files are backed up, you have to edit the ~/.shallow-backup file. There are two recommended ways of doing this.

1. You can open this up in a regular text editor and make your changes.
2. You can use the --add SECTION PATH or --rm PATH args to modify the config file.

NOTE: Dotfile paths should be added relative to the home directory.

Output Structure

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backup_dir/
├── configs
│   ├── plist
│   │   └── com.apple.Terminal.plist
│   ├── sublime_2
│   │   └── ...
│   └── sublime_3
│       └── ...
├── dotfiles
│   ├── .bash_profile
│   ├── .bashrc
│   ├── .gitconfig
│   ├── .pypirc
│   ├── .shallow-backup
│   ├── .ssh/
│   │   └── known_hosts
│   ├── .vim/
│   └── .zshrc
├── fonts
│   ├── AllerDisplay.ttf
│   ├── Aller_Bd.ttf
│   ├── Aller_BdIt.ttf
│   ├── Aller_It.ttf
│   ├── ...
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Bold Italic.ttf
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Bold.ttf
│   ├── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline Italic.ttf
│   └── Ubuntu Mono derivative Powerline.ttf
└── packages
    ├── apm_list.txt
    ├── brew-cask_list.txt
    ├── brew_list.txt
    ├── cargo_list.txt
    ├── gem_list.txt
    ├── installed_apps_list.txt
    ├── npm_list.txt
    ├── macports_list.txt
    ├── pip_list.txt
    └── sublime3_list.txt

Inspiration

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I back up system images of my MacBook Pro to an external SSD multiple times every week, and it always takes way too long. I wanted to speed this up, so I took a look at what was actually being backed up. I saw that my brew, npm, and pip libraries took up a ton more space than I imagined.

And that's totally unnecessary. When you back something up, you do it with the intention of being able to get back to that exact state at some point in the future. The minimum you need in order to recreate those package libraries later is just a list of the packages that are installed with each package manager. If you have these lists, restoring your system package installs is easy: $ pip install -r pip_list.txt, for example.

I cut down my backup size by almost 10GB by replacing my pip, brew, brew cask and npm libraries with simple text files. I also cut down the back up time significantly since many fewer files were being copied.

Once I'd built that functionality, I wanted to have a single backup utility for files and folders often used by developers, so I added the ability to backup dotfiles and fonts. (Note: Because just having a list of installed fonts or a list of dotfiles that exist isn't very useful, shallow-backup creates copies of all dotfiles and user installed fonts.)

Want to Contribute?

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Check out CONTRIBUTING.md