How would or do you backup your home server? I don’t have enough physical storage (for now) at home to store some backups, so I want to upload it to the cloud. Of course I want the backup to be encrypted, but I don’t want to enter the password every time by server does a backup. I am currently using borg on my PC and do it manually. How do I create a encrypted backup without entering the key manually? Do I hardcode it somewhere? Don’t really like that. I am also fine with trying other backup software.
I run proxmox, and proxmox backup server in a vm. PBS backup is encrypted locally, and I upload the backup to backblaze b2 using rclone in a cron job. I store the decryption key elsewhere
It has worked ok for me. I also upload a heartbeat file, it is just a empty file with todays date (
touch heartbeat), so that I can easily check when the last upload happenedBorg or the like with ‘hardcoded’ plaintext/regularly full-disk-encrypted key is acceptable. Someone that has your unencrypted private key sitting on your server has almost certainly already obtained access to the entire set of data you’re backing up, with the backup key itself only meaningfully guarding access to older backups.
The more important thing is to securely keep extra copies in case the server fails. I keep mine in a group in my password manager, one per repo.
In terms of pricing, I find Hetzner is best for under 1TB, Backblaze for over 1TB. Both have great documentation for setting up any number of backup methods (SFTP, SSH, Rsync, Rclone, Borg, etc).
Rsync, Rclone, and Borg are all good options and some may be built into your choice of OS if you use a dedicated NAS system. Choose whatever is easiest for you.
The backups are gonna be encrypted in transit regardless of method, and Im pretty sure most backup providers encrypt data on their servers so you dont have to manage that I dont think.
When you commit to backups, IMO you should do them daily - Most backup clients have options for “sync” options which will ignore unchanged files and only upload changes, so a daily backup is not only more up-to-date but also more efficient once the first backup completes.
most backup providers encrypt data on their servers so you dont have to manage that I dont think.
That’s something you should manage yourself, so the provider isn’t the one with the keys, by encrypting the backup locally before sending it. Most solutions you mention let you do that.
Good point!
How many tb? It may be cheaper even within a year to just purchase another hard drive
An extra hard drive doesn’t save you from something like your house burning down. Off-site backups are important!
Send it to your parents and work is what I do :)
