prune and create using systemd services, solved issue #3191

[b166er]

hi,
i had the same error and came across this issue here #3191
I was able to find the error for myself, it was due to a chained service. my service ran "borg prune --stats..." first before the backup started, the parameter "--stats" delayed the process a few seconds even though the systemd had already started the borg create process, so that was it repo always locked. the solution, just remove the "--stats" from the borg prune before running borg create. you could also set your own delay between the steps so that the locking doesn't get in the way.

# cat /etc/systemd/system/borg.service
[Unit]
Description=Borg Backup
Requires=borg-prune.service
After=borg-prune.service

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 5
EnvironmentFile=/etc/borg/borg.env
ExecStart=/usr/bin/borg create --stats --exclude-from /etc/borg/exclude.list --one-file-system ::{now} /

# cat /etc/systemd/system/borg-prune.service
[Unit]
Description=Clean Borg backup

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/borg/borg.env
ExecStart=/usr/bin/borg prune --keep-daily=3 --keep-weekly=1 --keep-monthly=2 ::

[ThomasWaldmann]

Not sure if that really is "the solution". if you have parallel running stuff and the only difference between working and failure are some seconds in startup time, it doesn't sound very reliable anyway.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Closing this as outdated: it has seen no activity for a long time and predates the current borg releases.

If this still affects you on a current version - borg 1.4.x (stable) or the borg 2.0.0 beta - please open a new discussion with up-to-date details.