borg (borgbackup) and rsync to rsyncnet?

Question

I run borgbackup on my laptop every 6 hours.

I want to keep a copy of my backups on rsyncnet

My laptop is not always connected to the internet, or it might be on a slow internet, so I figured it would be good to rsync my borg repo to rsyncnet.

But now I'm wondering if that is wise. All the documentation I've seen talks about backing up with borg directly to rsyncnet, no additional rsync step.

• If one day, rsync only partially syncs changed files in my borg repo, will my borg backup be broken in some way? eg index files not matching the data files.

• I make the backups as root, and rsync as a plain user, so I have problems rsyncing the nonce file. Is that critical?

• If I should just borg directly to rsyncnet, then isn't that a major disadvantage? ie I will only get 6-hourly backups if I am connected to the internet for long enough to upload that backup (eg perhaps there was a large change backed up).

thanks

Answer 1

Do not mix two tools: Use either borg or rsync! I strongly recommend borg over rsync, since it offers encryption, deduplication, integrity checks, mounting of archives etc.

It is not recommended to duplicate a borg repository, because then there will effectively be two repositories with the same id, which will "confuse" your local borg instance when you use them alternately.

Better have two borg repositories: a local one and a remote one. The provider you mentioned supports borg, too. Do not bother about faulty internet connections. If borg is unable to complete a backup it will start off where it left before, when you run it next time.

TL;DR: Just use borg.