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

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

plakar backup [-cache path] [-category category] [-check] [-dry-run] [-environment environment] [-force-timestamp timestamp] [-ignore pattern] [-ignore-file file] [-job job] [-name name] [-no-progress] [-no-xattr] [-o option=value] [-packfiles path] [-perimeter perimeter] [-tag tag] [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:

path
Specify a path to store the vfs cache. Use the special value ‘no’ to disable caching. Use the special value ‘vfs’ to use the in-memory vfs cache (the default).
category
Set the snapshot category.
Perform a full check on the backup after success.
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.
environment
Set the snapshot environment.
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.
job
Name the snapshot job.
name
Name the snapshot.
Do not compute or display progress. By default, plakar backup does two passes on the source of the backup: one to compute the number of items, and a second for processing the items themselves. This flag disables the pass to compute the number of items. It is set implicitly for some importer connectors that don't support the two-passes.
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.
path
Path where to put the temporary packfiles instead of building them in the default temporary directory. If the special value ‘memory’ is specified then the packfiles are built in memory.
perimeter
Set the snapshot perimeter.
tag
Comma-separated list of tags to apply to the snapshot.

Comma-separated list of tags to apply to the snapshot during backup. Overridden by the -tag command-line flag.

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

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 /

plakar(1), plakar-source(1)

Plakar May 5, 2026 PLAKAR-BACKUP(1)