PLAKAR-BACKUP(1) General Commands Manual PLAKAR-BACKUP(1)

plakar-backup — Create a new snapshot in a Kloset store

plakar backup [-concurrency number] [-force-timestamp timestamp] [-ignore pattern] [-ignore-file file] [-check] [-no-xattr] [-o option=value] [-packfiles path] [-quiet] [-silent] [-tag tag] [-scan] [place]

The plakar backup command creates a new snapshot of place, or the current directory. Snapshots can be filtered to ignore specific files or directories based on patterns provided through options.

place can be either a path, an URI, or a label with the form “@name” to reference a source connector configured with plakar-source(1).

The options are as follows:

number
Set the maximum number of parallel tasks for faster processing. Defaults to 8 * CPU count + 1.
timestamp
Specify a fixed timestamp (in ISO 8601 or relative human format) to use for the snapshot. Could be used to reimport an existing backup with the same timestamp.
pattern
Specify individual gitignore exclusion patterns to ignore files or directories in the backup. This option can be repeated.
file
Specify a file containing gitignore exclusion patterns, one per line, to ignore files or directories in the backup.
Perform a full check on the backup after success.
Skip extended attributes (xattrs) when creating the backup.
option=value
Can be used to pass extra arguments to the source connector. The given option takes precedence over the configuration file.
Suppress output to standard input, only logging errors and warnings.
path
Path where to put the temporary packfiles instead of building them in memory. If the special value ‘memory’ is specified then the packfiles are build in memory (the default value)
Suppress all output.
tag
Comma-separated list of tags to apply to the snapshot.
Do not write a snapshot; instead, perform a dry run by outputting the list of files and directories that would be included in the backup. Respects all exclude patterns and other options, but makes no changes to the Kloset store.

Create a snapshot of the current directory with two tags:

$ plakar backup -tag daily-backup,production

Ignore files using patterns in a given file:

$ plakar backup -ignore-file ~/my-ignore-file /var/www

or by using patterns specified inline:

$ plakar backup -ignore "*.tmp" -ignore "*.log" /var/www

Pass an option to the importer, in this case to don't traverse mount points:

$ plakar backup -o dont_traverse_fs=true /

The plakar-backup utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

0
Command completed successfully; a snapshot was created, but some items may have been skipped (for example, files without sufficient permissions). Run plakar-info(1) on the new snapshot to view any errors.
>0
An error occurred, such as failure to access the Kloset store or issues with exclusion patterns.

plakar(1), plakar-source(1)

Plakar July 3, 2025 PLAKAR-BACKUP(1)