THIS IS WORK IN PROGRESS, DO NOT USE IN PLACE OF YOUR REGULAR BACKUPS.

IT IS NOT ALPHA, IT IS NOT EVEN PRE-ALPHA, IT IS PRE-BIGBANG.

DO YOU PLAN TO USE IT ?

• NO: GOOD, CONTINUE NOT USING IT.
• YES: PLEASE, DO NOT USE IT.

JUST IN CASE, HERE IS A FLOW CHART TO BETTER EXPLAIN VALID CURRENT USE-CASES:

+-----------------------+        +----+
| SHOULD I USE PLAKAR ? | -----> | NO |
+-----------------------+        +----+

• general cleanup as this is my first real Go project

plakar requires Go 1.16 or higher, it may work on older versions but hasn't been tested.

$ go get github.com/poolpOrg/plakar/cmd/plakar

The next thing to do is to create a plakar repository,

$ plakar create
repository passphrase:
repository passphrase (confirm):
$

It may be desirable to create unencrypted plakar repositories, particularly for the default local plakar, the -no-encryption option may be used in this case:

$ plakar create -no-encryption
$

It is possible to create multiple repositories, simply by providing a path to the plakar create subcommand:

$ plakar on /tmp/plakar.1 create -no-encryption
$

$ plakar on /tmp/plakar.2 create
repository passphrase:
repository passphrase (confirm):
$

ALL of the subcommands below, support working on alternate plakars.

Whenever a non-default plakar is used, it should be noted on the command line with on:

$ plakar on /tmp/plakar.1 push /bin
$ plakar on /tmp/plakar.1 ls
2022-03-21T22:02:17Z  22cd673e    3.1 MB /private/etc
$ 

plakar works by creating a snapshot of filesystem hierarchies and storing them efficiently.

$ plakar push /private/etc
$

Available snapshots are identified by UUID identifiers and can be listed:

$ plakar ls
2022-03-21T22:02:17Z  b3bdb2b0    3.1 MB /private/etc
$

Each snapshot can be restored with a single command:

$ plakar pull b3bdb2b0
$ ls -ld private/etc/
drwxr-xr-x  82 gilles  staff  2624  6 Oct 21:48 private/etc/
$

Each snapshot is assigned a UUID to allow referencing it in subcommands.

To make it easier for humans, the plakar CLI provides prefix-based lookups so that the UUID does not need to be typed entirely. Whenever a snapshot UUID is expected, a user may provide the first characters and plakar will complete the missing part:

$ plakar ls
2022-03-21T22:02:17Z  b3bdb2b0    3.1 MB /private/etc
$ plakar check b3
$ echo $?
0
$

In case of ambiguity, an error will be emitted to ensure an unambiguous identifier is provided:

$ plakar ls
2022-03-21T22:02:17Z  b3bdb2b0    3.1 MB /private/etc
2022-03-21T22:02:17Z  b68a8f07    3.1 MB /private/etc
$ plakar check b
2022/03/06 21:50:10 plakar: snapshot ID is ambiguous: b (matches 2 snapshots)
$ plakar check b3
$ 

Commands that refer to a resource inside a snapshot may refer to it using a snapshot-relative path.

These paths must be absolute but are prefixed with the snapshot they are relative to:

$ plakar ls b3:/private/etc/passwd
-rw-r--r--     root    wheel   7.6 kB /private/etc/passwd
$ plakar ls b3:/private/etc/passwd b6:/private/etc/passwd
-rw-r--r--     root    wheel   7.6 kB /private/etc/passwd
-rw-r--r--     root    wheel   7.6 kB /private/etc/passwd
$

For up-to-date informations, you can read the documentation available at https://plakar.io