GitHub Backup

This project builds a Docker image and Python CLI for backing up every GitHub repository visible to a personal access token. Repositories are stored as bare Git repositories under {directory}/{owner}/{repo}.

The current implementation is aimed at unattended runs on Unraid, but the backup engine is now packaged as a normal Python module as well.

What It Does

• Lists repositories available to the configured GitHub token.
• Optionally appends repositories from explicitly configured extra orgs.
• Optionally filters repositories by owner.
• Clones new repositories as bare repositories.
• Fetches updates for existing repositories.
• Runs on a schedule inside the container when started with backup.sh.

Performance And Robustness Changes

• Uses per_page=100 when listing repositories from the GitHub API.
• Syncs repositories concurrently with a bounded worker pool.
• Avoids rewriting the persistent config file on container startup.
• Stops embedding the token in Git remote URLs.
• Removes the expensive recursive chown after every run.
• Logs Git fetch ref changes when a repo actually changed.
• Suppresses per-repo no-op logs and keeps output focused on changed repos, failures, and the final summary.

Configuration

config.json supports:

{
  "token": "github_token_here",
  "directory": "/home/docker/backups",
  "concurrency": 4,
  "schedule_seconds": 86400,
  "failure_delay_seconds": 300,
  "extra_orgs": ["optional-extra-org"],
  "owners": ["optional-owner-filter"]
}

Environment variables override config values:

• TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN
• BACKUP_DIRECTORY
• CONCURRENCY
• SCHEDULE
• FAILURE_DELAY_SECONDS
• EXTRA_ORGS
• OWNERS

extra_orgs adds repositories from named organizations on top of the normal /user/repos sync. This is useful when your token can access an org, but you want that org included explicitly without changing the default behavior for your own repos.

Docker

Build the image:

docker build -t github-backup:latest .

Run it:

docker run --rm \
  --name github-backup \
  -e TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here \
  -e SCHEDULE=86400 \
  -v "$(pwd)/config:/home/docker/github-backup/config" \
  -v "$(pwd)/backups:/home/docker/backups" \
  github-backup:latest

Local Usage

python -m github_backup ./config.json