2026-09-01
bup-on - run a bup on a remote host, communicating with a local server
bup on [user@]host[:port] index …
bup on [user@]host[:port] save …
bup on [user@]host[:port] restore …
bup on [user@]host[:port] split …
bup on [user@]host[:port] version …
bup on [user@]host[:port] features …
bup on [user@]host[:port] help …
bup on [user@]host[:port] get …
(Prefer bup get --source-url ssh://<hostname>...)
bup on runs the command on the remote host via ssh,
connected to a bup server running on the local machine, so that remote
commands like bup save can back up to the local repository.
See bup-index(1), bup-save(1), and so on for
the command details.
Note that you don’t need to (and shouldn’t) provide a
--remote option. This “reverse mode” is useful when the
machine being backed up isn’t supposed to be able to ssh into the backup
server. Instead, the backup server, even if hidden behind a one-way
firewall on a private or dynamic IP address, can connect to each of your
important machines using an ssh key, and initiate a backup that saves
the remote data to the local repository.
# First index the files on the remote server
$ bup on myserver index -vux /etc
bup server: reading from stdin.
Indexing: 2465, done.
bup: merging indexes (186668/186668), done.
bup server: done
# Now save the files from the remote server to the
# local $BUP_DIR
$ bup on myserver save -n myserver-backup /etc
bup server: reading from stdin.
bup server: command: 'list-indexes'
PackIdxList: using 7 indexes.
Saving: 100.00% (241/241k, 648/648 files), done.
bup server: received 55 objects.
Indexing objects: 100% (55/55), done.
bup server: command: 'quit'
bup server: done
# Now we can look at the resulting repo on the local
# machine
$ bup ftp 'cat /myserver-backup/latest/etc/passwd'
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
...bup-index(1), bup-save(1),
bup-split(1), bup-get(1)
Part of the bup(1) suite.