# Let's talk about GitHub backups!

> Let's talk about Github backups Following Microsoft's announcement to acquire GitHub, this shed some light on how I've been too generous to centralized services offering free services. After all, you do get what you pay for. Although I have had...

## Let's talk about Github backups

Following [Microsoft's announcement](https://blog.github.com/2018-06-04-github-microsoft/) to
[acquire GitHub](https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/),
this shed some light on how I've been too generous to centralized services offering free services.
After all, you _do get what you pay for_.

Although I have had tendencies to jump on the Microsoft hate bandwagon a few times, due to the
(in my opinion) terrible customer focus -- I don't totally dislike the idea of GitHub being
owned by Microsoft. I will save that spiel for another though. Today, I wanted to focus on getting
a bit more control of the data I house on GitHub. After all, GitHub is almost like a resume for
developers, and if I were to lose that data, I don't know what I'd do.

### python-github-backup

I began browsing for utilities/services that could backup my account info, repositories, gists,
and stars, etc. I came across [python-github-backup](https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup).
Today, I will briefly go over how I use it.

I wanted to setup weekly backups, to my NAS (with over 40TB worth of free space).

### Installation

Let's begin with the installation. It's silly simple (using root):

```bash
sudo pip install github-backup
```

Or (using root):

```bash
sudo pip install git+https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup.git#egg=github-backup
```

Or (as a regular user):

```bash
pip install --user github-backup
```

## Usage

Take a look at `github-backup --help`, or the README in the above linked repo. It's pretty extensively
amazing.

### On a cron you say?

I've setup a simple wrapper script, which runs backups in a temporary directory, then archives
them and places them in a desired location:

```bash
#!/bin/bash

USER="${1:?usage: $0 <user> <archive>}"
ARCHIVE_LOC="${2:?usage: $0 <user> <archive>}"

which github-backup > /dev/null 2>&1 || pip install github-backup

if [ -z "$GH_BACKUP_TOKEN" ];then
 echo 'missing $GH_BACKUP_TOKEN...'
 exit 1
fi

_tmp=$(mktemp -d -p "/run/user/$(id -u)" -t "github-backup-XXXXX")
if [ "$?" != 0 ];then exit 1;fi

trap "rm -rf $_tmp" EXIT
echo "using '$_tmp'..."

github-backup \
    --token "$GH_BACKUP_TOKEN" \
    --starred \
    --followers \
    --following \
    --issues \
    --issue-comments \
    --repositories \
    --wikis \
    --gists \
    --starred-gists \
    --private \
    --output-directory "$_tmp" "$USER"

tar -czvf "$ARCHIVE_LOC" -C "$_tmp" .
```

Above script is also [available here](https://gist.github.com/lrstanley/34ee3b024223af142258ce5d1a7c16c9).

I've dropped it in `~/bin/gbackup`, but you can place it anywhere. I also have two cronjobs, which
run every Sunday, at ~3:00AM and ~3:15AM respectively:

```cron
0 3 * * 0 /root/bin/gbackup lrstanley /net/media/archives/github-backups/github-backup-lrstanley.$(date +%Y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S).tar.gz > /dev/null
15 3 * * 0 find /net/media/archives/github-backups/ -type f -mtime +365 -delete > /dev/null
```

Notice that second command -- it finds any archives older than 365 days old, and removes them. That's
around 52 backups across an entire year, at about ~45MB `.tar.gz`'d per backup. Not bad!

Lastly, the script needs a variable set. `GH_BACKUP_TOKEN`, which you can generate using [this GitHub page](https://github.com/settings/tokens/new).

You can invoke the github-backup script with it using `GH_BACKUP_TOKEN=<token> /root/bin/gbackup` or
place it in e.g. `~/.bashrc`, using `export GH_BACKUP_TOKEN=<token>` where it will be accessible
when you run the script.

Welp, now I have GitHub backups. It's not amazingly robust, but since GitHub doesn't have a full-account
backup system in place, this is sufficient enough for me at this time. Happy commiting.