This article is about how to install and use Vorta, a graphical frontend for BorgBackup application. If you are new to using the borg backup tool, please take a look at our guide on how to use borg backup before proceeding with this guide.
Table of Contents
What is Vorta?
As you may already know, Borg is an opensource, deduplication backup program that offers a lot of features. Since BorgBackup is purely a commandline tool, it is quite difficult to remember all the commands.
Having a GUI client like Vorta will make your life easy when working with borg.
Vorta is a GUI desktop client for BorgBackup. Using Vorta, you can easily integrate the Borg application to your favorite desktop environment. No need to memorize the commands. Everything can be done via a simple graphical interface!
Vorta uses Borg as a backend to take encrypted, deduplicated, and compressed backups with couple mouse clicks. You can backup the data to local or remote drives, your own system and even to the cloud using BorgBase hosting service.
You can view the archives and restore files from one place. You can also create multiple profiles to group source folders, backup destinations and schedules.
Vorta will work on any system that supports Qt and Borg. It is completely free, open source and multi-platform application. It works well in Linux and macOS. Windows is not completely supported yet by Borg.
Without further ado, let us go ahead and see how to install Vorta in different flavors of Linux and how to backup and restore files using Vorta.
Install Vorta In Linux
The common way to install Vorta irrespective of your Linux distribution is through the python package manager PiP.
Depending on the version of PiP, you can use any one of the following commands to install Vorta.
$ pip install vorta
Or,
$ pip3 install vorta
Vorta can also be installed through flatpak.
$ flatpak install flathub com.borgbase.Vorta
$ flatpak run com.borgbase.Vorta
Vorta is packaged for popular Linux operating systems, so you can install Vorta using the default package managers.
For Debian/Ubuntu and its derivatives run the following command:
$ sudo apt install vorta
On Fedora and other RPM-based systems, install Vorta from the copr repository like below:
$ sudo dnf copr enable luminoso/vorta
$ sudo dnf install vorta
Vorta is available in AUR. You can install Vorta in Arch Linux, and its variants like EndeavourOS and Manjaro Linux, using AURH helper tools like Paru or Yay.
$ paru -S vorta
Or,
$ yay -S vorta
On Solus:
$ sudo eopkg it vorta
Setting Up Backup Repository
In borg terms, snapshots will be referred to as archives, and storage areas for these archives are referred to as repositories. Initialize a repository where your archives will be stored.
Under Repository tab -> Repository -> Initialize New Repository.
It will open a new window, which will prompt you to choose a backup repository location along with a passphrase and encryption type.
If you are setting up a remote repository, then you have to choose a remote repository (username@hostname:/path/to/repo
) instead of the local repository path.
Remember the passphrase, whenever you try to access this repository, you will be prompted to enter this passphrase. You can also skip setting passphrase.
Click on the Advanced tab where you can set the encryption type for your repository. I have chosen "None" for testing purposes but it is not recommended.
You can also choose what type of compression algorithm to be used for the archived data. I am choosing LZ4 which is the default compression algorithm.
Choosing Source Data
Go to the Sources tab where you will have a bunch of options to work with. You can add or remove directories or files. You can also create an exclude pattern in its respective tab. When you are running the backup, the matched pattern will skip the file or directory to be skipped.
I have created a directory named "/home/karthick/borg/source" and added some files to it which will be used as my source directory and it will be backed up.
Now start the backup by clicking "Start Backup". Wait for the backup to be completed and you will get backup stats along with status messages like as shown below.
List Of Backups
You might have taken more snapshots for a repository and you can see the list of snapshots under the "Archives" section.
By default, the archive will be saved in the name "{hostname}-{now:%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S}
". It will be easy to find the backup date and time from the archive name or through the Date column.
Difference Between Archives
Before restoring the data, you should know which archive holds the file or directory that you wish to restore and what version is stored. You can use "Diff" section to compare two archives.
Under the "Archives" tab, press "Diff" which will launch the dialog box from where you can select two archives to compare.
Like as shown in the above image, select two archives and press "Diff". You will get a window like below where you can get the difference. In my case, two files are deleted before taking the second backup.
Rename Archives
Renaming an archive is pretty simple through Vorta. Select an archive from the archives tab and press "Rename" as shown in the below image.
It will prompt you to enter the new name for the archive and once you press "OK" the archive name will be updated.
Prune Archives
Prune will allow you to retain a certain number of archives and clean the rest. Depending upon how your backup is set up (Yearly, Monthly, Daily, Weekly, Hourly), you can choose to retain N number of copies.
You can also apply prune to archives that start with certain prefixes. Under "Prune Prefix", you have to set what should be the prefix of your archive.
Extract Data From Archive
There are two ways to restore data using Vorta. You can either choose "Extract" which will extract the particular data alone to the given directory or "Mount" which will mount the archive as the file system and we need to manually copy the data to wherever required.
Let’s try to extract some data. I have selected an archive and chosen "Extract". It will open a window and you have to select what should be extracted. In my case, I have selected two files like shown below.
It will prompt you to choose the destination directory and the data will be extracted.
Another option to restore the data is to mount the repository and copy the data manually from it. Select the archive and press "Mount".
Now it will prompt you to choose the destination directory where the archive will be mounted. I have created a directory called "Extract_Here" on my desktop where the archive will be mounted.
Now you can copy the data wherever you want in the file system.
To unmount the archive, you can choose the "Unmount" option.
Delete An Archive
If you wish to delete an archive from the repository you can choose the archive from the archives tab and press "Delete" like shown below.
Schedule Backups
Vorta has a built-in scheduler and you can use it to automate your backups. Here I am setting my backup to run daily at 12:59 PM. You can also choose "prune" old archives after running each automatic backup.
Export and Import Profile
You can export the profile which will be saved as a .json
file and later import it to retain all the settings.
Choose the export icon like shown above. It will prompt you to enter the name for your json file and save it.
Now you can import the json file to retain the profile settings. I am deleting the default profile and then importing it.
Now press "Import from file" and choose the json file you exported. Now all your settings and backup data will be imported.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed how to install and use Vorta in Linux. We have not covered the core functionality of the borg backup tool in this article but only about Vorta usage so it is better to start with knowing how to use borg backup and then use vorta.
Resources:
Linux backup and synchronization guides:
- How To Backup Your Entire Linux System Using Rsync
- How To Backup Files And Directories Using Rsync In Linux
- How To Backup And Restore Linux System With Timeshift
- How To Backup And Restore Files Using Deja Dup In Linux
- How To Setup Backup Server Using Rsnapshot
- How To Synchronize Files With Unison On Linux
- How To Synchronize Local And Remote Directories In Linux
- How To Synchronize Files And Directories Using Zaloha.sh
- CYA – System Snapshot And Restore Utility For Linux
- Restic – A Fast, Secure And Efficient Backup Application
- How To Install Rclone In Linux And Unix
4 comments
Been using Vorta on my desktop. Works great.
Thanks, Didn’t know about Borg too, great tool. Thanks for introductions.
Would like to see Vorta as a system backup tool as well? Not only file backups.
Have not seen any solution, some discussions on root problems, but…
Yeah. We already have Timeshift for system-level backups. https://ostechnix.com/how-to-backup-and-restore-linux-system-with-timeshift/