DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / borgbackup2 / borg2-placeholders.1.en
BORG-PLACEHOLDERS(1) borg backup tool BORG-PLACEHOLDERS(1)

borg-placeholders - Details regarding placeholders

Repository URLs, --name, -a / --match-archives, --comment and --remote-path values support these placeholders:

{hostname}
The (short) hostname of the machine.
{fqdn}
The full name of the machine.
{reverse-fqdn}
The full name of the machine in reverse domain name notation.
{now}
The current local date and time, by default in ISO-8601 format. You can also supply your own format string, e.g. {now:%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S}
{utcnow}
The current UTC date and time, by default in ISO-8601 format. You can also supply your own format string, e.g. {utcnow:%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S}
{user}
The user name (or UID, if no name is available) of the user running borg.
{pid}
The current process ID.
{borgversion}
The version of borg, e.g.: 1.0.8rc1
{borgmajor}
The version of borg, only the major version, e.g.: 1
{borgminor}
The version of borg, only major and minor version, e.g.: 1.0
{borgpatch}
The version of borg, only major, minor and patch version, e.g.: 1.0.8

If literal curly braces need to be used, double them for escaping:

borg create /path/to/repo::{{literal_text}}


Examples:

borg create /path/to/repo::{hostname}-{user}-{utcnow} ...
borg create /path/to/repo::{hostname}-{now:%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S%z} ...
borg prune -a 'sh:{hostname}-*' ...


NOTE:

systemd uses a difficult, non-standard syntax for command lines in unit files (refer to the systemd.unit(5) manual page).

When invoking borg from unit files, pay particular attention to escaping, especially when using the now/utcnow placeholders, since systemd performs its own %-based variable replacement even in quoted text. To avoid interference from systemd, double all percent signs ({hostname}-{now:%Y-%m-%d_%H:%M:%S} becomes {hostname}-{now:%%Y-%%m-%%d_%%H:%%M:%%S}).



The Borg Collective

2023-03-01