Offsite Backups

A simple backup strategy is to have:

1. Primary Storage: Typically RAID protected
2. Local Backup: USB-Attched disks, NAS, etc.
3. Remote Bbackup: Your data backed-up somewhere outside your house

There are a lot of options out there to do this (GoogleDrive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.). This guide documents Box and Mega. I chose thgese two because they give 50GB of free storage. I only backup my scripts and docker directories to them so that's plenty of space.

Setting up MEGA

• Go to https://mega.nz/ and sign up
• Install MEGA
• sudo apt update
• sudo apt install gnupg2
• wget -qO - https://mega.nz/linux/repo/Debian_12/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -
• echo "deb https://mega.nz/linux/repo/Debian_12/ ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megacmd.list
• sudo apt update
• sudo apt install megacmd
• Confirm it by running: mega-version

Automating a backup with MEGA

Here's a script I use to backup my scripts directory. I tar the scripts directory, compress it, and load that to MEGA:

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

# === CONFIG ===
SRC="YOUR_SCRIPTS_DIRECTORY"
EXCLUDES=(
  "venv"
  "spotify_env"
)
DEST_DIR="/backup-scripts" # This is the name of the dicertory on MEGA. Use whatever you want
DATE=$(date +%F)
ARCHIVE="scripts-${DATE}.tar.gz"

# === BUILD TAR COMMAND WITH EXCLUDES ===
TAR_CMD=(tar -czf "$ARCHIVE")
for EX in "${EXCLUDES[@]}"; do
    TAR_CMD+=(--exclude="$EX")
done
TAR_CMD+=("$SRC")

echo "[INFO] Creating archive: $ARCHIVE"
"${TAR_CMD[@]}"

echo "[INFO] Logging out of MEGA"
mega-logout       # You must be logged out of MEGA or you'll get an error when you try to log in
echo "[INFO] Logging in to MEGA"
mega-login "YOUR_EMAIL" "YOUR_PASSWORD" # Use the email and password you used when creating the account
echo "[INFO] Uploading to MEGA: $DEST_DIR"
mega-put "$ARCHIVE" "$DEST_DIR"    # Upload the tar file to MEGA

echo "[SUCCESS] Backup complete: $ARCHIVE uploaded to $DEST_DIR"
rm -f "$ARCHIVE"

Cleanup

I keep 30 days of backups. Here's a script to clean up MEGA and keep only 30 days of backups.

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

TARGET="backup-scripts" # Your MEGA backup directory
DAYS=30                 # Keep 30 days worth of backups

# Get cutoff timestamp (seconds since epoch)
CUTOFF=$(date -d "$DAYS days ago" +%s)

echo "[INFO] Logging out of MEGA"
mega-logout
echo "[INFO] Logging in to MEGA"
mega-login "YOUR_EMAIL" "YOUR_PASSWORD"

echo "[INFO] Listing MEGA folder"
mega-ls -l "$TARGET"

# Skip the first TWO lines (folder name + header)
mega-ls -l "$TARGET" | tail -n +3 | while read -r LINE; do
    [[ -z "$LINE" ]] && continue

    FLAGS=$(echo "$LINE" | awk '{print $1}')
    SIZE=$(echo "$LINE" | awk '{print $3}')
    DATE=$(echo "$LINE" | awk '{print $4}')
    TIME=$(echo "$LINE" | awk '{print $5}')
    NAME=$(echo "$LINE" | awk '{for(i=6;i<=NF;i++) printf $i " "; print ""}')

    # Convert 09May2026 → "09 May 2026"
    DATE_FMT=$(echo "$DATE" | sed 's/\([0-9]\{2\}\)\([A-Za-z]\{3\}\)\([0-9]\{4\}\)/\1 \2 \3/')
    echo "TIME: $TIME"
    echo "DATE: $DATE"
    echo "DATE_FMT: $DATE_FMT"
    FILE_TS=$(date -d "$DATE_FMT $TIME" +%s)

    if (( FILE_TS < CUTOFF )); then
        echo "Deleting old file: $NAME"
        mega-rm "$TARGET/$NAME"
    fi
done

Setting up Box

Now let's do the same for Box:

• Go to https://box.com/ and sign up
• Install Box

You don't really install Box, you setup rclone to use box.

• Install rclone:
• curl -O https://rclone.org/install.sh
• sudo bash install.sh
• Verify: rclone version
• Create a config directory: mkdir -p ~/.config/rclone
• Now we configure rclone for Box:
• rclone config
• Select "n" for "New remote"
• Name it. I use "box"
• Select "Box" (it's probably selection 7 or 8)
• Press enter for "client_id", "client_secret", "box_config_file", and "access_token"
• Select 1 (user)
• Enter "n" for "Edit advanced config"
• If you're on a headless system, select "n" for "Use auto config", otherwose, select "y"
• Select "y"

Automating a backup with Box

Here's a simple script to tar a directory, compress it, and send it to box:

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

# ============================
# CONFIGURATION
# ============================
SRC_PATH="YOUR_DIRECTORY_TO_BACK_UP"
DEST_PATH="box:backups-scripts" # Your directory on Box
DATE=$(date +%F)
ARCHIVE="scripts-${DATE}.tar.gz"

EXCLUDES=(
  "venv"
  "spotify_env"
  "__pycache__"
  ".cache"
)

LOG() {
    echo "[INFO] $1"
}

# ============================
# BUILD TAR COMMAND
# ============================
TAR_CMD=(tar -czf "$ARCHIVE")

for EX in "${EXCLUDES[@]}"; do
    TAR_CMD+=(--exclude="$EX")
done

TAR_CMD+=("$SRC_PATH")

# ============================
# CREATE ARCHIVE
# ============================
LOG "Creating archive: $ARCHIVE"
"${TAR_CMD[@]}"

# ============================
# UPLOAD TO BOX
# ============================
LOG "Uploading to Box: $DEST_PATH"
rclone copy "$ARCHIVE" "$DEST_PATH" --checksum --stats=0

# ============================
# VERIFY UPLOAD
# ============================
if rclone ls "$DEST_PATH" | grep -q "$ARCHIVE"; then
    LOG "Upload verified: $ARCHIVE exists in $DEST_PATH"
else
    echo "[ERROR] Upload failed: $ARCHIVE not found in $DEST_PATH"
    exit 1
fi

# ============================
# CLEANUP
# ============================
rm -f "$ARCHIVE"
LOG "Local archive removed"

# ============================
# EXPLICIT CLOSURE
# ============================
LOG "Backup completed successfully"
exit 0

Cleanup

Here's the cleanup script like the one for MEGA:

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

TARGET="box:backups-scripts"
DAYS=30  #retain 30 days of backups

# Cutoff timestamp (seconds since epoch)
CUTOFF=$(date -d "$DAYS days ago" +%s)

echo "[INFO] Listing Box folder: $TARGET"

# rclone lsjson gives deterministic machine‑readable output
rclone lsjson "$TARGET" | jq -c '.[]' | while read -r ITEM; do
    NAME=$(echo "$ITEM" | jq -r '.Name')
    MODTIME=$(echo "$ITEM" | jq -r '.ModTime')

    # Convert ModTime → epoch
    FILE_TS=$(date -d "$MODTIME" +%s)

    echo "[DEBUG] File: $NAME | ModTime: $MODTIME | TS: $FILE_TS"

    if (( FILE_TS < CUTOFF )); then
        echo "[INFO] Deleting old file: $NAME"
        rclone delete "$TARGET/$NAME"
    fi
done

echo "[SUCCESS] Box prune complete for $TARGET"

Scheduling

I run these nightly using cron. Backing up my docker and scripts directories on my three systems for 30 days should consume less than 10GB of data so these fit comforatbly in the "Free" tiers of MEGA and Box>