Go Backup Utility

A simple yet powerful command-line utility written in Go for creating, restoring, and serving backups of files, directories, and block devices. It supports gzip compression for files/disks and tar.gz for directories, with multiple modes for network operations.

The key feature of this tool is the ability to handle backups over the network, allowing you to create a backup on one machine and restore it on another without storing intermediate files, either via a direct connection or through a central backup server.

Features

• File, Disk, and Directory Backup: Create backups of individual files, entire directories, or full block devices (e.g., /dev/sda).
• Multiple Network Modes:
  1. HTTP Server Mode: Run a dedicated server using the serve command to upload and download backup files.
  2. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Mode: Directly stream a backup from a machine running create to another running restore.
• Compression: Uses gzip for efficient compression. Directories are archived using tar before compression.
• Interactive Progress Bars: Displays a real-time progress bar for creating and restoring, so you always know the status of the operation.
• Cross-Platform: Written in Go, it can be compiled for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Installation

To build the utility from source, you need to have Go and the git client installed.

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/your-username/backup-utility.git
   cd backup-utility
   

2. Build the binary:

   go build
   

3. This will create an executable file named backup (or backup.exe on Windows). You can move this file to a directory in your system's PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin) to make it globally accessible.

Usage

The utility has three main commands: create, restore, and serve.

1. Local Backup and Restore

This mode works entirely on your local filesystem.

Backup a Directory

Creates a tar.gz archive of the source directory.

./backup create -s /path/to/source/directory -t /path/to/backup.tar.gz

Restore a Directory

Extracts a tar.gz archive. If the target directory is omitted, it defaults to the current working directory.

./backup restore -s /path/to/backup.tar.gz -t /path/to/restore/location

Backup a File or Disk

Creates a compressed .gz file from a source file or block device.

# Backup a file
./backup create -s /path/to/largefile.log -t /path/to/largefile.log.gz

# Backup a disk partition (use with caution!)
./backup create -s /dev/sdb1 -t /path/to/sdb1_backup.img.gz

Restore a File or Disk

Decompresses a .gz file or writes the uncompressed data to a block device.

# Restore a file
./backup restore -s /path/to/largefile.log.gz -t /path/to/restored_largefile.log

# Restore a disk partition (use with extreme caution!)
./backup restore -s /path/to/sdb1_backup.img.gz -t /dev/sdb1

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2. HTTP Server Mode

This mode is ideal for managing backups in a centralized location. One machine runs serve, and other machines can upload (create) or download (restore) backups from it.

Step 1: Start the Backup Server On your server machine, run the serve command. This will start an HTTP server that listens for backup requests.

# Run the server, listening on port 8080
# Backups will be stored in the default directory (~/backups)
./backup serve -a 0.0.0.0:8080

# Specify a custom directory for backups
./backup serve -a 0.0.0.0:8080 -d /mnt/backups

The server is now running and waiting for client connections.

Step 2 (Client): Create and Upload a Backup On a client machine, use the create command and point the target (-t) to the server's address, followed by a / and the desired filename for the backup.

# Back up a directory and upload it to the server as "my_project_backup.tar.gz"
./backup create -s ./my_project -t 192.168.1.100:8080/my_project_backup.tar.gz

# Back up a disk and upload it
./backup create -s /dev/sdc -t 192.168.1.100:8080/sdc_image.img.gz

Step 3 (Client): Download and Restore a Backup To restore, use the restore command and point the source (-s) to the server URL.

# Download and restore a directory backup from the server
./backup restore -s 192.168.1.100:8080/my_project_backup.tar.gz -t ./restored_project

# Download and restore a disk image
./backup restore -s 192.168.1.100:8080/sdc_image.img.gz -t /dev/sdd

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3. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Mode

This mode streams a backup directly from one machine to another without a central server. It's useful for one-off migrations or direct transfers.

Step 1: On the receiving machine (Server-like role) Run the restore command with a listening address (ip:port) as the source (-s). Use 0.0.0.0 to listen on all network interfaces.

# The machine waits for data on port 8080 and will restore it to /mnt/data
./backup restore -s 0.0.0.0:8080 -t /mnt/data

The command will print Listening on 0.0.0.0:8080... and will pause until the client connects.

Step 2: On the sending machine (Client-like role) Run the create command, pointing the target (-t) to the IP address and port of the receiving machine.

# This will back up the /home/user/documents directory and send it directly
# to the machine at 192.168.1.200 on port 8080.
./backup create -s /home/user/documents -t 192.168.1.200:8080

The backup will start immediately, and you will see a progress bar on both terminals.

Command-line Flags

• create:
  • -s, --source: The source file, directory, or disk to back up (required).
  • -t, --target: The target. Can be a local file path, a P2P address (ip:port), or an HTTP server URL (ip:port/filename) (required).
• restore:
  • -s, --source: The source. Can be a local archive, a P2P listening address (ip:port), or an HTTP server URL (ip:port/filename) (required).
  • -t, --target: The target file, disk, or directory. Required for network restores and local file/disk restores.
• serve:
  • -a, --address: The address and port for the server to listen on (defaults to localhost:8080).
  • -d, --directory: The directory to store backups in (defaults to ~/backups).

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.