Extract without full path

[Ovski4]

Hi,

I would like to know if there is a way to extract an archive without getting the full path. I didn't find this answer in the "borg extract options".

If I am in /home/user, and want to extract the directory /home/toto/important_files from my backup, I will get the following path: /home/user/home/toto/important_files.

I find this dangerous, because a user might want to delete the home directory recursively : rm -rf ~/home/
If by mistake, It runs rm -rf /home, it's bad. It's even worse for other directories etc/, and so on.

Thank you!

[ThomasWaldmann]

from borg extract help

  --strip-components NUMBER
                        Remove the specified number of leading path elements.
                        Pathnames with fewer elements will be silently
                        skipped.

[ThomasWaldmann]

In general: causing a desaster by badly mistyping rm or other commands is not in scope of this issue tracker. The general rule here is to better type such stuff slowly and read / think again for a few seconds before hitting enter. In case you nevertheless cause a desaster, that is why you have (full) backups.

[Ovski4]

Thank you for your answer, I read too quickly and didn't get the purpose of this option. I agree with what you said anyway, I always try to be as careful as possible.

[jcrben]

The commands and options here are rather unfriendly to the user...

[ThomasWaldmann]

@jcrben so, what is your suggestion to improve?

[jcrben]

Sorry to be critical without more details!

Why would an option for removing leading path elements be called --strip-components? Naming is hard, it's easier to criticize than create, but keep in mind that even if the users are mostly programmers we are still humans...

I think also this sort of problem is better solved by specifying the path directly rather than trying to strip out elements with a number. It's like the difference between an array and a hash map: see https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/lirke/simple_made_easy_by_rich_hickey_video/

[ThomasWaldmann]

So, what you suggest is --strip-path=/path/prefix/to/strip ?

[jcrben]

Maybe, but I guess I was thinking I'd just specify the full intended pathname explicitly as an override. I haven't run into this use case yet.

I guess I'd also rather just use code to do something like this... I'm mostly using borg-backup in an automated fashion with scripts so I would probably just split the path and slice it as necessary if needed.

[ThomasWaldmann]

@jcrben not sure i understand. assume you have these pathes in the archive:

mnt/server/home/username/document.txt
mnt/server/etc/passwd

So, one likely will want borg extract --strip-path=mnt/server/ archive::repo (as an easier replacement for --strip-components=2).

So, what would you do?

[Tuxie]

IMHO, it would be most intuitive to be able to append the extraction root path to the repo definition, and use ending slashes like rsync:

borg extract archive::repo/mnt/server/ home/username/document.txt etc/passwd

Extraction would work like this:
borg backup archive::home-2016-11-12 /home

cd ~/code/
borg extract archive::home-2016-11-12/home/tuxie/code/ my_project

or

mkdir ~/code/my_project_restored
cd ~/code/my_project_restored
borg extract archive::home-2016-11-12/home/tuxie/code/ my_project/

[ThomasWaldmann]

I don't think we want to make the repo::archive parsing even more complex than it already is (in contrary: there is a ticket to make it simpler by splitting it up).

[jcrben]

I think what I want is basically just a destination path for extract: jborg/attic#195

Generally when I'm extracting it is to examine the backup first rather than just clobbering my existing files...

I guess this might be handled by the attic todo list per #1563

Making it clear that extract is relative to the current directory https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/quickstart.html#a-step-by-step-example could probably save a lot of confusion. See #1885