#tmux-session #backup #tmux #tmux-plugin #tmux-resurrect

bin+lib tmux-backup

A backup & restore solution for Tmux sessions

4 releases

0.5.7 Aug 14, 2024
0.5.6 Aug 14, 2024
0.5.5 Aug 14, 2024
0.5.4 Aug 29, 2023

#472 in Command line utilities

Download history 308/week @ 2024-08-11 22/week @ 2024-08-18 14/week @ 2024-09-15 13/week @ 2024-09-22 34/week @ 2024-09-29

61 downloads per month

MIT/Apache

75KB
1K SLoC

tmux-backup

crate documentation minimum rustc 1.74 rust 2021 edition build status

A backup & restore solution for Tmux sessions.

Version requirement: rustc 1.74+

Features

  • Backup and restore of your tmux environment:
    • tmux sessions windows, panes, with layout, titles & pane history
    • current and last session.
  • Fast: less than 1 sec for 16 sessions, 45 windows and 80 panes.
  • Show the catalog of backups, with age, file size, content description & archive format
  • 2 strategies are available:
    • keep the n most recent backups
    • classic backup strategy:
      • the lastest backup per hour for the past 24 hours (max 23 backups - exclude the past hour),
      • the lastest backup per day for the past 7 days (max 6 backups - exclude the past 24 hours),
      • the lastest backup per week of the past 4 weeks (max 3 backups - exclude the past week),
      • the lastest backup per month of this year (max 11 backups - exclude the past month).
  • Because you decide where backups are stored, you can use both strategies, combining the benefits of high-frequency backups and on demand backups like in tmux-resurrect.

Getting started

After installation (see below), you can either use it from the command line, or via tmux bindings.

The catalog is located by default in $XDG_STATE_HOME/tmux-backup/, or §HOME/.state/tmux-backup otherwise. The default strategy is "most-recent", but you can change it with --strategy classic. Check usage with tmux-backup --help for detailed help.

View the catalog of existing backups

$ tmux-backup catalog list --details
Strategy: KeepMostRecent: 10
Location: `$HOME/.local/state/tmux-backup`

     NAME                             AGE         STATUS       FILESIZE    VERSION  CONTENT
 11. backup-20220907T224553.156103.tar.zst   2 days      purgeable    644.17 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 79 panes
 10. backup-20220907T224926.103771.tar.zst   2 days      retainable   644.38 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 79 panes
  9. backup-20220908T092341.125258.tar.zst   2 days      retainable   654.76 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 79 panes
  8. backup-20220909T224742.781818.tar.zst   18 hours    retainable   599.64 kB   1.0      16 sessions 42 windows 77 panes
  7. backup-20220909T225158.305403.tar.zst   18 hours    retainable   600.32 kB   1.0      16 sessions 42 windows 79 panes
  6. backup-20220910T152551.807672.tar.zst   1 hour      retainable   608.79 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes
  5. backup-20220910T165118.250800.tar.zst   29 minutes  retainable   614.16 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes
  4. backup-20220910T171812.893389.tar.zst   2 minutes   retainable   614.33 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes
  3. backup-20220910T172016.924711.tar.zst   11 seconds  retainable   614.44 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes
  2. backup-20220910T172019.320809.tar.zst   8 seconds   retainable   614.42 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes
  1. backup-20220910T172024.141993.tar.zst   3 seconds   retainable   614.38 kB   1.0      16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes

11 backups: 10 retainable, 1 purgeable

If you installed the plugin config into tmux, then the default tmux bindings for listing backups are

  • prefix + b + l to show the simple catalog
  • prefix + b + L to show the detailed catalog (adds the filesize, version & content columns)

Both of these bindings will open a tmux popup showing the catalog content.

Save the current tmux environment

$ tmux-backup save
 16 sessions 43 windows 80 panes, persisted to `/Users/graelo/.local/state/tmux-backup/backup-20220910T171812.893389.tar.zst`

By default, the tmux binding for saving a new backup are

  • prefix + b + s save and compact (delete purgeable backups)
  • prefix + b + b save but not compact the catalog

Both of these bindings will print the same report as above in the tmux status bar.

Restore from a backup

Typing tmux-backup restore in your shell outside of tmux will

  • start a tmux server if none is running
  • restore all sessions from the latest backup
  • but you still have to tmux attach -t <your-last-session>

The same command typed in a shell inside tmux will erase session 0 (the default start session) and restore your tmux environment in place.

By default, the tmux binding for restoring the latest backup is

  • prefix + b + r restore sessions from the latest backup

Installation

Installing the binary

On macOS

brew install graelo/homebrew-tap/tmux-backup  # will also install shell completions

On linux

curl \
    https://github.com/graelo/tmux-backup/releases/download/v0.4.0/tmux-backup-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz \
    | tar xf - > /usr/local/bin/tmux-backup
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/tmux-backup

On linux, to install completions, type

tmux-backup generate-completion zsh|bash|fish > /path/to/your/completions/folder

Installing the tmux plugin hook

Type

mkdir ~/.tmux/plugins/tmux-backup
tmux-backup init > ~/.tmux/plugins/tmux-backup/tmux-backup.tmux

If you don't use tpm, just add this to your .tmux.conf:

source-file ~/.tmux/plugins/tmux-backup/tmux-backup.tmux

Alternatively, if you use tpm, declare the tmux-backup plugin to TPM in your ~/.tmux.conf:

set -g @tpm_plugins '              \
  tmux-plugins/tpm                 \
  tmux-plugins/tmux-backup         \  <-- here
  tmux-plugins/tmux-copyrat        \
  tmux-plugins/tmux-yank           \
  tmux-plugins/tmux-resurrect      \
  tmux-plugins/tmux-sessionist     \
'

The next time you start tmux, the tmux-backup.tmux configuration will be loaded.

Caveats

  • This is a beta version
  • Does not handle multiple clients: help is welcome if you have clear scenarios for this.
  • Does not handle session groups: help is also welcome.

License

Licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Dependencies

~14–25MB
~389K SLoC