---
title: How to monitor your backups
---

## Monitoring and alerting

Having backups is great, but they won't do you a lot of good unless you have
confidence that they're running on a regular basis. That's where monitoring
and alerting comes in.

There are several different ways you can monitor your backups and find out
whether they're succeeding. Which of these you choose to do is up to you and
your particular infrastructure:

1. **Job runner alerts**: The easiest place to start is with failure alerts
from the [scheduled job
runner](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/set-up-backups/#autopilot) (cron,
systemd, etc.) that's running borgmatic. But note that if the job doesn't even
get scheduled (e.g. due to the job runner not running), you probably won't get
an alert at all! Still, this is a decent first line of defense, especially
when combined with some of the other approaches below.
2. **borgmatic error hooks**: The `on_error` hook allows you to run an arbitrary
command or script when borgmatic itself encounters an error running your
backups. So for instance, you can run a script to send yourself a text message
alert. But note that if borgmatic doesn't actually run, this alert won't fire.
See [error
hooks](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/#error-hooks)
below for how to configure this.
4. **borgmatic monitoring hooks**: This feature integrates with monitoring
   services like [Healthchecks](https://healthchecks.io/),
[Cronitor](https://cronitor.io), and [Cronhub](https://cronhub.io), and pings
these services whenever borgmatic runs. That way, you'll receive an alert when
something goes wrong or the service doesn't hear from borgmatic for a
configured interval. See
[Healthchecks
hook](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/#healthchecks-hook), [Cronitor
hook](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/#cronitor-hook), and [Cronhub
hook](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/#cronhub-hook)
below for how to configure this.
3. **Third-party monitoring software**: You can use traditional monitoring
software to consume borgmatic JSON output and track when the last
successful backup occurred. See [scripting
borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/monitor-your-backups/#scripting-borgmatic)
below for how to configure this.
5. **Borg hosting providers**: Most [Borg hosting
providers](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/#hosting-providers) include
monitoring and alerting as part of their offering. This gives you a dashboard
to check on all of your backups, and can alert you if the service doesn't hear
from borgmatic for a configured interval.
6. **borgmatic consistency checks**: While not strictly part of monitoring, if you
really want confidence that your backups are not only running but are
restorable as well, you can configure particular [consistency
checks](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/deal-with-very-large-backups/#consistency-check-configuration)
or even script full [extract
tests](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/extract-a-backup/).


## Error hooks

When an error occurs during a `prune`, `create`, or `check` action, borgmatic
can run configurable shell commands to fire off custom error notifications or
take other actions, so you can get alerted as soon as something goes wrong.
Here's a not-so-useful example:

```yaml
hooks:
    on_error:
        - echo "Error while creating a backup or running a backup hook."
```

The `on_error` hook supports interpolating particular runtime variables into
the hook command. Here's an example that assumes you provide a separate shell
script to handle the alerting:

```yaml
hooks:
    on_error:
        - send-text-message.sh "{configuration_filename}" "{repository}"
```

In this example, when the error occurs, borgmatic interpolates a few runtime
values into the hook command: the borgmatic configuration filename, and the
path of the repository. Here's the full set of supported variables you can use
here:

 * `configuration_filename`: borgmatic configuration filename in which the
   error occurred
 * `repository`: path of the repository in which the error occurred (may be
   blank if the error occurs in a hook)
 * `error`: the error message itself
 * `output`: output of the command that failed (may be blank if an error
   occurred without running a command)

Note that borgmatic runs the `on_error` hooks only for `prune`, `create`, or
`check` actions or hooks in which an error occurs, and not other actions. 
borgmatic does not run `on_error` hooks if an error occurs within a
`before_everything` or `after_everything` hook. For more about hooks, see the
[borgmatic hooks
documentation](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/),
especially the security information.


## Healthchecks hook

[Healthchecks](https://healthchecks.io/) is a service that provides "instant
alerts when your cron jobs fail silently", and borgmatic has built-in
integration with it. Once you create a Healthchecks account and project on
their site, all you need to do is configure borgmatic with the unique "Ping
URL" for your project. Here's an example:


```yaml
hooks:
    healthchecks: https://hc-ping.com/addffa72-da17-40ae-be9c-ff591afb942a
```

With this hook in place, borgmatic pings your Healthchecks project when a
backup begins, ends, or errors. Specifically, before the <a
href="https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/">`before_backup`
hooks</a> run, borgmatic lets Healthchecks know that it has started if any of
the `prune`, `create`, or `check` actions are run.

Then, if the actions complete successfully, borgmatic notifies Healthchecks of
the success after the `after_backup` hooks run, and includes borgmatic logs in
the payload data sent to Healthchecks. This means that borgmatic logs show up
in the Healthchecks UI, although be aware that Healthchecks currently has a
10-kilobyte limit for the logs in each ping.

If an error occurs during any action, borgmatic notifies Healthchecks after
the `on_error` hooks run, also tacking on logs including the error itself. But
the logs are only included for errors that occur when a `prune`, `create`, or
`check` action is run.

You can customize the verbosity of the logs that are sent to Healthchecks with
borgmatic's `--monitoring-verbosity` flag. The `--files` and `--stats` flags
may also be of use. See `borgmatic --help` for more information.

You can configure Healthchecks to notify you by a [variety of
mechanisms](https://healthchecks.io/#welcome-integrations) when backups fail
or it doesn't hear from borgmatic for a certain period of time.


## Cronitor hook

[Cronitor](https://cronitor.io/) provides "Cron monitoring and uptime healthchecks
for websites, services and APIs", and borgmatic has built-in
integration with it. Once you create a Cronitor account and cron job monitor on
their site, all you need to do is configure borgmatic with the unique "Ping
API URL" for your monitor. Here's an example:


```yaml
hooks:
    cronitor: https://cronitor.link/d3x0c1
```

With this hook in place, borgmatic pings your Cronitor monitor when a backup
begins, ends, or errors. Specifically, before the <a
href="https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/">`before_backup`
hooks</a> run, borgmatic lets Cronitor know that it has started if any of the
`prune`, `create`, or `check` actions are run. Then, if the actions complete
successfully, borgmatic notifies Cronitor of the success after the
`after_backup` hooks run. And if an error occurs during any action, borgmatic
notifies Cronitor after the `on_error` hooks run.

You can configure Cronitor to notify you by a [variety of
mechanisms](https://cronitor.io/docs/cron-job-notifications) when backups fail
or it doesn't hear from borgmatic for a certain period of time.


## Cronhub hook

[Cronhub](https://cronhub.io/) provides "instant alerts when any of your
background jobs fail silently or run longer than expected", and borgmatic has
built-in integration with it. Once you create a Cronhub account and monitor on
their site, all you need to do is configure borgmatic with the unique "Ping
URL" for your monitor. Here's an example:


```yaml
hooks:
    cronhub: https://cronhub.io/start/1f5e3410-254c-11e8-b61d-55875966d031
```

With this hook in place, borgmatic pings your Cronhub monitor when a backup
begins, ends, or errors. Specifically, before the <a
href="https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/">`before_backup`
hooks</a> run, borgmatic lets Cronhub know that it has started if any of the
`prune`, `create`, or `check` actions are run. Then, if the actions complete
successfully, borgmatic notifies Cronhub of the success after the
`after_backup` hooks run. And if an error occurs during any action, borgmatic
notifies Cronhub after the `on_error` hooks run.

Note that even though you configure borgmatic with the "start" variant of the
ping URL, borgmatic substitutes the correct state into the URL when pinging
Cronhub ("start", "finish", or "fail").

You can configure Cronhub to notify you by a [variety of
mechanisms](https://docs.cronhub.io/integrations.html) when backups fail
or it doesn't hear from borgmatic for a certain period of time.


## Scripting borgmatic

To consume the output of borgmatic in other software, you can include an
optional `--json` flag with `create`, `list`, or `info` to get the output
formatted as JSON.

Note that when you specify the `--json` flag, Borg's other non-JSON output is
suppressed so as not to interfere with the captured JSON. Also note that JSON
output only shows up at the console, and not in syslog.


### Successful backups

`borgmatic list` includes support for a `--successful` flag that only lists
successful (non-checkpoint) backups. This flag works via a basic heuristic: It
assumes that non-checkpoint archive names end with a digit (e.g. from a
timestamp), while checkpoint archive names do not. This means that if you're
using custom archive names that do not end in a digit, the `--successful` flag
will not work as expected.

Combined with a built-in Borg flag like `--last`, you can list the last
successful backup for use in your monitoring scripts. Here's an example
combined with `--json`:

```bash
borgmatic list --successful --last 1 --json
```

Note that this particular combination will only work if you've got a single
backup "series" in your repository. If you're instead backing up, say, from
multiple different hosts into a single repository, then you'll need to get
fancier with your archive listing. See `borg list --help` for more flags.


## Related documentation

 * [Set up backups with borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/set-up-backups/)
 * [Inspect your backups](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/inspect-your-backups/)
 * [Add preparation and cleanup steps to backups](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/add-preparation-and-cleanup-steps-to-backups/)
 * [Extract a backup](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/extract-a-backup/)
 * [Develop on borgmatic](https://torsion.org/borgmatic/docs/how-to/develop-on-borgmatic/)