How to use Duplicacy to backup to Storj cloud storage

Introduction

Duplicacy is a cross-platform cloud backup tool with client-side encryption and fast performance.

• Available as a web-based GUI or a command line tool.

• Excellent performance and uses Lock Free Deduplication.

• A software license is required but the command-line interface (CLI) version is free for personal use.

• Extensive storage backend support.

We'll use the CLI version for this tutorial to back up to Storj cloud storage.

Installation

Packages

Pre-compiled binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows directly from the Duplicacy GitHub repository.

Download the latest version for your system. The current version is 3.2.3.

$ sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/duplicacy https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/releases/download/v3.1.0/duplicacy_linux_x64_3.1.0

Change the file mode bit.

$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/duplicacy

Preparing a new repository

The duplicacy init command initializes the storage.

duplicacy init [command options] <snapshot id> <storage url>

The <snapshot id> refers to the name of the backup job. The <storage url> refers to the storage location of the backup job.

The duplicacy init command has multiple options, but we'll only be using the following:

-storage-name <name>  The name assigned to the storage.
-repository <path>   The directory to back up.

We'll initialize the repository using the duplicacy init command and these options in the next section.

Storj cloud storage

The Storj cloud provider offers decentralized storage built for performance with an open-source architecture.

The free tier offers 150 GB of free storage.

To backup data via Storj, create a storage bucket and API key from their website.

1. Sign up for a free account.

2. Create a new storage bucket and passphrase. The passphrase is not used for Duplicacy because you have an API key. However, it is a requirement for the storage bucket.

3. Create an API key. Navigate to the Access page and click the Create Keys for CLI link (rightmost option). Provide name, permissions, and optionally buckets, and select Create Keys.
4. Copy and save the Satellite Address and API key in a safe place or download them because they will only appear once.

You will need the Satellite Address and API key to initialize your repository.

Here is the format:

$ duplicacy init -storage-name <storage name> -repository <path to directory to backup> <storage id> <storage url>

The <storage url> for Storj uses the following format:

storj://satellite_address/bucket

Optional performance parameters

Duplicacy uses a unique pack-and-split method to split files into chunks with a default chunk size of 4 MiB.

Increase the chunk size for better performance with Storj buckets.

-chunk-size 32M
-max-chunk-size 64M

Here is the complete command for this example:

$  duplicacy init -chunk-size 32M -max-chunk-size 64M -storage-name storjphotos -repository /home/poochie/Photos photosbackup storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup

Here is the output:

$ duplicacy init -chunk-size 32M -max-chunk-size 64M -storage-name storjphotos -repository /home/poochie/Photos photosbackup storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup
Enter the API access key:
Enter the passphrase:
/home/poochie/Photos will be backed up to storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup with id photosbackup

Please note the following prompts:

Enter the API access key:
Enter the passphrase:

1. Copy and paste in your API key.

2. Copy and paste in a passphrase you would like to use.

Saving configuration information

Duplicacy automatically creates a configuration folder named .duplicacy when the initialization is complete. The preferences file in this directory contains the configuration data.

The duplicacy set command allows you to store your keys and passphrase in the configuration file to avoid manually inputting them when backing up or restoring files.

Setting this will allow you to automate your backups with bash scripts or schedule them via cron jobs.

duplicacy set -storage <storage name> -key -value

Go to the official Duplicacy wiki for a complete list of environment variables.

We'll be setting the following variable keys:

<storagename>_storj_key
<storagename>_storj_passphrase

Here is the complete command for our example:

$ duplicacy set -storage storjphotos -key 'storjphotos_storj_key' -value 'MyApiKey'

$ duplicacy set -storage storjphotos -key 'storjphotos_storj_passphrase' -value 'Mypassphrase'

You can run the backup command without being prompted to provide your credentials when finished.

Backing up

Use the duplicacy backup command to back up your data.

duplicacy backup -storage <storagename>

Here is the complete command using our example:

$ duplicacy backup -storage storjphotos

Here is the output:

$ duplicacy backup -storage storjphotos
Repository set to /home/poochie/Photos
Storage set to storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup
No previous backup found
Indexing /home/poochie/Photos
Parsing filter file /home/poochie/.duplicacy/filters
Loaded 0 include/exclude pattern(s)
Listing all chunks
Packed profile.png (133686)
Backup for /home/poochie/Photos at revision 1 completed

Duplicacy assigns a revision number starting with one and increments it every time you run the backup.

Here is what a second backup will look like if there are no file changes.

$ duplicacy backup -storage storjphotos
Repository set to /home/poochie/Photos
Storage set to storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup
Last backup at revision 1 found
Indexing /home/poochie/Photos
Parsing filter file /home/poochie/.duplicacy/filters
Loaded 0 include/exclude pattern(s)
Backup for /home/poochie/Photos at revision 2 completed

Restoring files

Use the duplicacy restore command to restore files from your backups.

duplicacy restore [command options] [--] [pattern] ...

The duplicacy restore command has multiple options, but we'll only be discussing the following:

-r <revision> - revision number of the snapshot
-stats - show statistics
-overwrite - overwrite existing files
-storage <storage name> - name of storage

To restore the entire snapshot from the initial backup, run the following command:

$ duplicacy restore -storage storjphotos -stats -r 1

Here is the output:

$ duplicacy restore -storage storjphotos -stats -r 1
Repository set to /home/poochie/Photos
Storage set to storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup
Loaded 0 include/exclude pattern(s)
Forcing in-place mode with a non-default preference path
Parsing filter file /home/poochie/.duplicacy/filters
Loaded 0 include/exclude pattern(s)
Restoring /home/poochie/Photos to revision 1
Downloaded chunk 1 size 133686, 131KB/s 00:00:01 100.0%
Downloaded profile.png (133686)
Restored /home/poochie/Photos to revision 1
Files: 1 total, 131K bytes
Downloaded 1 file, 131K bytes, 1 chunks
Skipped 0 file, 0 bytes
Total running time: 00:00:01

• Only restores missing files.

• The overwrite option is needed to overwrite existing files.

• The overwrite option only overwrites existing files that have changed.

• The overwrite option will be ignored if there are no file changes.

To restore specific files, specify a pattern.

To restore all files with the .png extension:

$ duplicacy restore -storage storjphotos -stats -r 1 -- '*.png'

To restore a file named profile.png:

$ duplicacy restore -storage storjphotos -stats -r 1 profile.png

See more details about the restore option.

Listing files in the backups

Use the duplicacy list command is used to list files in the backup snapshots.

duplicacy list [command options]

The duplicacy list command has multiple options, but we'll only be discussing the following:

-r - revision number of the snapshot 
-files - print the file list in each snapshot
-storage <storage name> - name of storage

To list the files from a 4th backup:

$ duplicacy list -storage storjphotos -r 4 -files

Here is the output:

$ duplicacy list -storage storjphotos -r 4 -files 
Repository set to /home/poochie/Photos 
Storage set to storj://[e-mail]:7777/photosbackup
Snapshot photosbackup revision 4 created at 2022-11-11 15:28 
Files: 3 
fbf8fb3184a7e2c55875707f  profile.png 
298cefc3919c3ad78c5a50   redhat.png 
a23217febc1e446aa47812    test.log 
Total size: 183974, file chunks: 3, metadata chunks: 3

Conclusion

Duplicacy is a powerful backup tool and this tutorial is only a brief introduction of what it has to offer. Check out the Duplicacy forum for complete documentation and helpful community support.