bup-on(1) Bup 0.34+
Author: Avery Pennarun apenwarr@gmail.com
Date: 2026-09-01

# NAME

bup-on - run a bup on a remote host, communicating with a local server

# SYNOPSIS

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>...`)

# DESCRIPTION

`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.

# EXAMPLES

    # 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
    ...

# SEE ALSO

`bup-index`(1), `bup-save`(1), `bup-split`(1), `bup-get`(1)

# BUP

Part of the `bup`(1) suite.