Install Minarca Backup
Install Minarca Server
We'll start with a new Incus container (LXC / LXD). I am starting with an image of a Ubuntu 22.04 (24.04 doesn't seem to be supported by Minarca just yet). If you are using a Container like Incus / LXD / LXC, then you need to set it up with Nesting = true (Nesting = 1 in Proxmox). For Docker, you need to also run it as privileged, though that's not what we'll cover here.
NOTE: We set all of this up as a root user. It's not specifically that Minarca needs root access, it's just that this install creates a Minarca user, and sets up the default backups folder at the root path of `/backups`.
We'll learn how to change that root backup location later in the tutorial.
Prepare Our Server
Let's get into super user mode, just to make things easeir:
sudo su -
We'll first update and upgrade the packages on the server.
apt update && apt upgrade -y
Next, we'll install some prerequisite applications:
apt install apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl lsb-release gpg git nano wget openssh-server -y
After this completes, we need to add the Minarca keys to the keyring
curl -L https://www.ikus-soft.com/archive/minarca/public.key | gpg --dearmor > /usr/share/keyrings/minarca-keyring.gpg
After that, we'll add the Minarca repository to our repository list with:
echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/minarca-keyring.gpg] https://nexus.ikus-soft.com/repository/apt-release-$(lsb_release -sc)/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/minarca.list
Now we can update our packages. This should update and include the Minarca packages without any errors:
apt update
And, finally we'll install the minarca-server on our system.
apt install minarca-server -y
Access the Web UI
You can now go to the IP address of your server on port 8080, and you should be presented with the initial login screen of the Minarca Server. In my case I go to http://192.168.10.25:8080
The default login credentials are:
username: admin
password: admin123
You should absolutely change the password for the admin user after your first login. You can do that by navigating to 'Admin area' in the top navigation, then to the 'Users' tab below that.
In the Admin row click 'Edit'. Change the Password with a new, long, strong, complex password, and save it in your password manager, then save it in Minarca Server.
Adding a Different Default Storage Location
This took me a bit of time to figure out completely, but it's not too bad. By default, Minarca Server uses the main drive for your main file system / operating system. So, if you have a 500 GB SSD, that's what it will use by default. In my case, I'm putting this in an Incus Container, and I want to use the built in ZFS Array that has quite a bit more space, so I've created a Storage Pool in Incus, and a Storage Volume inside that called "backups". I have mounted the storage volume in Incus (similar to what you'd do in Proxmox with an LXC container) at "/mnt/backups" for this container (not to be confused with the default path that Minarca setup at "/backups").
However you determine to mount or add storage is fine, you just need to know the path to that new, hopefully larger storage location.
First, we need to edit a configuration file to add our new base storage directory for Minarca.
sudo nano /etc/minarca/minarca-server.conf
In this file, add a new line at the end, and put the following in that space, adjusting the path to match your new storage path.
minarca-user-base-dir=/mnt/backups ← You would of course put your own storage path in place of "/mnt/backups"
Save the file with CTRL + O, then press Enter to confirm, and use CTRL + X to exit the nano editor.
We need to make sure the "minarca" user and group owns the new storage directory, and that we have the proper permissions set on that directory as well:
sudo chown minarca:minarca /mnt/backups
sudo chmod 750 /mnt/backups
Next, we need to copy the ".ssh/aurhtorized_keys" from "/backups" for the minarca user to our new base storage directory.
cp -r /backups/.ssh /mnt/backups/ <-- Notice the end slash (/), it's important here.
Now we need to change the ownership of the .ssh folder and it's contained files:
chown -R minarca:minarca /mnt/backups/.ssh
After changing the ownership we need to set the proper permissions of the .ssh folder and the containerd authorized_keys file.
chmod 700 /mnt/backups/.ssh
chmod 600 /mnt/backups/.ssh/authorized_keys
Finally, we need to tell Minarca that it has a new Home directory for storage. We need to stop the minarca-server service:
sudo systemctl stop minarca-server
Now, tell it about it's new home directory.
sudo usermod -d /mnt/backups/ minarca
INFO: The author of Minarca has suggested, however, that we mount our extra storage as the path `/backups`, then install Minarca which will use that storage space by default.
And restart the service:
sudo systemctl start minarca-server
Now we can add new users, and their storage will be created in the updated storage location with proper access and permissions.
Permissions in Minarca
There are several places where we adjust permissions in this system. The permissions and ownership, as I understand them from both the documentation and the project developer (who is absolutely awesome by the way) is as follows:
- A default backup location will be created at the path `/backups`
- All users added to the server will have their own directory in the `/backups` directory.
- If you have users 'brian', 'beatriz', and 'sofia', then the backups directory will look like this:
- All users added to the server will have their own directory in the `/backups` directory.
root - backups - brian - beatriz - sofia -
We, wanting to potentially have more storage, may need / want to change our storage location (explained above), in which case only the location of the `/backups` level directory will change. Everything else remains the same. We moved from `/backups` to `/mnt/backups` above. So our structure looks like
root -
mnt -
backups -
brian -
repository1 -
repository2 -
beatriz -
bea-mac -
bea-repo-1 -
bea-mac-2 -
sofia -
sofi-lin -
sofi-mac -
sofi-game -For each of the folders starting at "backups" the ownership must be set to minarca:minarca. The permissions at the "backups" level is 750 (drwxr-x---).
The permissions of each user's folder is 770 (drwxrwx---).
The permissions of the repositories inside the user's folders are 755 (drwxr-xr-x).
Once all of these are set correctly, you should be able to connect with the client. If you are having issues connecting, it is likely a permissions or ownership issue.
What if I already have a user, but want to move their storage?
This can be done with relative ease.
From the server command line, first we'll copy the users current directory from /backups/<username> to our new storage location (in this case /mnt/backups/).
cp -r /backups/brian /mnt/backups/ ← replace "brian" with your user's name. Also note that the slashes ( / ) are important here. We are saying to copy the folder "brian" and all of it's contents to the new directory of "/mnt/backups/".
Next, we need to make sure that the folder is copied with the appropriate ownership and permissions. Nothing should change in the copy process, but it's good to make sure.
ls -al /mnt/backups/
If you don't see something like the below for you folder you moved, then we need to update the ownership and / or permissions on that folder.
drwxr-xr-x 2 minarca minarca 2 Sep 9 14:31 brian
sudo chown -R minarca:minarca /mnt/backups/brian ← again, use your user's name here.
sudo chmod -R 755 /mnt/backups/brian ← changing to use your user's name.
Now, we can setup more users by adding them through our web administration portal. This will add them properly, and with the appropriate permissions to begin with. Or, you can move more users, and you'll need to make the same ownershp and perimissions changes as above.
Setup the Minarca Client
If you haven't yet installed the Minarca Client, you can get it at The Client Download Page.
Find the client that matches your Operating System, and install it accordingly. Windows uses a wizard with a bunch of pages to click through (ughhh), MacOS has a .dmg to install from, and Linux has a few options. The easiest is the portable file, but it's not "installed". I'd love to see a flatpak of this at some point, but it's not there yet.
If you download the portable file for linux, make sure to extract it, then go into the folder that is created, and you can run the file 'minarcaw' by double clicking on it.
If you are running on a server, or headless system from the CLI, not to worry, we can do what we need to from the command line as well. We'll get to that in a bit.
Assuming you got the GUI open, you'll need to fill in the details there.
The Remote Minarca Server is the URL or IP and Port of your server (e.g. http://192.168.1.25:8080). I have not tried to reverse proxy this yet, as I would want to run something like this over my VPN rather than the public internet (though it does use port 22 for the SSH communication).
Your user name is the user you setup in the Minarca server.
The user's password is the one you set in the Minarca server.
NOTE: if you enabled 2FA for this user, then you'll need a token instead of the password.
The repository name is generally created for you, but you can change it as long as it's unique.
Now click 'Sign In'.
If everything is configured correctly, you should see a new view open up.
Here, we need to do a little more setup, but it's just to make sure we are getting the right files / folders backed up. By default Minarca tries to select the right things, but it never hurts to make sure.
As you can see, it sets up the user's Documents and the Minarca config by default. This is fine, but I want to make sure it's just my Documents, and not my entire home folder perhaps. Or maybe I want to backup my Music and Photos as well. Whatever you case may be, you can click on the 'Select Files' option in the top navigation, then you can enable or disable any of the selected options, or simply click the 'Trash' icon to remove them from the view. I removed everything, then went in and selected just the folders I wanted by clicking the 'Add Folders' button. Make sure to double-click into the folder in order to select it.
Next, you'll want to set a schedule so Minarca will backup automatically and only get the differences from what is already there. This saves on space, bandwidth, and cost in many cases.
After you've setup your folder, and schedule, you can manually run a backup by going back to the 'Home' tab, and clicking 'Start Backup'.
Note for Windows Users
If you are setting up a backup for a machine where the user will be logged out, or not be logged in after a reboot, then you'll want to enable the option to allow backup of
Logs
As you go through the setup logs will be useful for any troubleshooting. The server has a log area you can view through the Web User Interface. This is a good place to start.
For the clients, you'll want to look for any logs in
On Windows
%LOCALAPPDATA%\minarca\
On Linux
On MacOS
~/Library/Logs/Minarca/
The Minarca CLI
If you need to backup a machine using the CLI (Command Line Interface), such as a headless machine, or server based system, it's not overly difficult.
First, you'll want to download the latest client to the systen you want to backup. I suggest using the .tar.gz for Linux systems in this case, as you can extract it, and more easily use the CLI `minarca` command from there.
1. Connect the client to your Minarca server:
./minarca configure -r <remote url> -u <your username> -p '<your password>' -n <repository name for this machine on the server>
If you enter this all correctly, you should see a message that says:
Linked successfully in the terminal view.
2. Set a path to include in the backups:
./minarca include pattern </path/to/include>
You can use wildcard characters, such as * and ? to build out a file / folder pattern of things to include. You can also use `exclude` in the same way if it's easier to first include a full directory, then only exclude a few things you don't want backed up (like logs, etc).
3. Run your first backup of the included files / folders:
./minarca backup --force
In this case we force the first backup only because we have not yet setup a schedule for our backups.
4. After successful completion of your initial backup, let's set a daily scheduled backup to run automatically.
./minarca schedule --daily
5. Check the status of minarca:
./minarca status
This can show you whether it's running, linked, and when the last successful backup was, etc.
6. Now that we've scheduled our backups, let's start minarca running in the background with:
./minarca start
Congratulations! You now have Minarca server and client(s) up and running, and you are backing up your various machines to a centrally hosted server! Well done. Make sure to watch the video for the full walkthrough.
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