github.com/github/backup-utils ↗

About github/backup-utils

Backup Utilities is an older backup solution for GitHub Enterprise Server that allows administrators to copy data from their GHES appliance to a remote machine over SSH. The toolset runs on the backup host rather than on the appliance itself and provides two main commands: ghe-backup for creating backups and ghe-restore for recovery operations. GitHub has since released a newer backup-service that runs directly on the GHES appliance, and backup-utils is being deprecated in favor of that solution.

The project implements several advanced capabilities including online backups that don't require maintenance mode, incremental backup of Git repositories to reduce bandwidth usage, efficient snapshot storage, and configurable retention periods for multiple snapshots. Backups run with low CPU and IO priority to minimize performance impact. The utilities work across most Linux/Unix environments and include features like parallel backup and restore capabilities when GNU awk and moreutils are installed.

As of late 2023, GitHub transitioned this repository to primarily serve as documentation and a release distribution point rather than a development repository. The internal GitHub repository became the source of truth for the code, and customers are now instructed to download specific versions from the releases page rather than cloning the repository. The project is MIT licensed and supported through GitHub Enterprise's official support channels.