Backup Utilities should be run on a host dedicated to long-term permanent storage and must have network connectivity with the GitHub Enterprise appliance.
Backup host software requirements are modest: Linux or other modern Unix operating system with bash, git, OpenSSH 5.6 or newer, and rsync v2.6.4 or newer.
We encourage the use of Docker if your backup host doesn't meet these requirements, or if Docker is your preferred platform.
The backup host must be able to establish outbound network connections to the GitHub appliance over SSH. TCP port 122 is used to backup GitHub Enterprise.
Storage requirements vary based on current Git repository disk usage and growth patterns of the GitHub appliance. We recommend allocating at least 5x the amount of storage allocated to the primary GitHub appliance for historical snapshots and growth over time.
Backup Utilities use hard links to store data efficiently, and the repositories on GitHub Enterprise use symbolic links so the backup snapshots must be written to a filesystem with support for symbolic and hard links.
Using a case sensitive file system is also required to avoid conflicts.
Starting with Backup Utilities v2.13.0, version support is inline with that of the GitHub Enterprise upgrade requirements and as such, support is limited to three versions of GitHub Enterprise: the version that corresponds with the version of Backup Utilities, and the two releases prior to it.
For example, Backup Utilities v2.13.0 can be used to backup and restore all patch releases from 2.11.0 to the latest patch release of GitHub Enterprise 2.13. Backup Utilities v2.14.0 will be released when GitHub Enterprise 2.14.0 is released and will then be used to backup all releases of GitHub Enterprise from 2.12.0 to the latest patch release of GitHub Enterprise 2.14.
Backup Utilities v2.11.4 and earlier offer support for GitHub Enterprise 2.10 and earlier releases.
Note: You can restore a snapshot that's at most two feature releases behind the restore target's version of GitHub Enterprise. For example, to restore a snapshot of GitHub Enterprise 2.11, the target GitHub Enterprise appliance must be running GitHub Enterprise 2.12.x or 2.13.x. You can't restore a snapshot from 2.10 to 2.13, because that's three releases ahead.