BackHub is a simple GitHub repository backup tool that creates complete local mirrors of your repositories. It supports concurrent backup operations, automated scheduling (every 3 days when run in a container), offers a standalone binary or a Docker container, and is self-hostable.

• Full repository mirroring including all branches, tags, and history
• Concurrent backup processing for multiple repositories defined in a YAML config file
• Automated backups and homelab-deployable with Docker deployment (every 3 days)
• GitHub token-based authentication (to be used in an environment variable)
• Easy restoration capability due to it being local mirror
• Multi-arch and multi-OS binary for simple one-time usage

The easiest way to download it is from the project releases.

go install github.com/tanq16/backhub@latest

git clone /~https://github.com/tanq16/backhub.git && \
cd backhub && \
go build

Run backhub directly with default config path (.backhub.yaml in PWD) or specify a custom config like so:

backhub -c /path/to/config.yaml

For inline environment variable, use:

GH_TOKEN=pat_jsdhksjdskhjdhkajshkdjh backhub

The Docker container uses a script that automatically runs the tool every 3 days to provide scheduled backups. First, set up a persistence repository:

mkdir $HOME/backhub # this is where you put your .backhub.yaml file

Then run the container like so:

docker run -d \
  --name backhub \
  -e GH_TOKEN=your_github_token \
  -v $HOME/backhub:/app \
  tanq16/backhub:latest

Conversely, you can use the following compose file for Docker compose or a stack in Portainer, Dockge, etc.

version: "3.8"
services:
  backhub:
    image: tanq16/backhub:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - GH_TOKEN=your_github_token
    volumes:
      - /home/tanq/backhub:/app

BackHub uses a simple YAML configuration file. Its default path is .backhub.yaml in the current working directory:

repos:
  - github.com/username/repo1
  - github.com/username/repo2
  - github.com/org/repo3

Lastly, use the GH_TOKEN environment variable as your GitHub personal access token to perform the backup of private repos.

To use a local mirror as a Git repository source (like when you need to restore from the backup), the following can be done:

1. Directly pull or clone from the mirror treating it as a backup remote in an existing repository:

   git remote add backup /path/to/your/mirror.git
   git pull backup main # or any other branch
   git clone /path/to/your/mirror.git new-repo

2. Serve the mirror via a local git server and use it :

   git daemon --base-path=/path/to/mirror --export-all
   git clone git://localhost/mirror.git # in a different path

3. Use the mirror as a git server by refering to it through the file protocol:

   git clone file:///path/to/mirror.git

Being a mirror, it contains all references (branches, tags, etc.), so cloning or pulling from it allows accessing everything as if it's the original. Use git branch -a to see all branches and git tag -l to see all tags in the mirror.