---
title: How to customize warnings and errors
eleventyNavigation:
  key: 💥 Customize warnings/errors
  parent: How-to guides
  order: 12
---
## When things go wrong

After Borg runs, it indicates whether it succeeded via its exit code, a
numeric ID indicating success, warning, or error. borgmatic consumes this exit
code to decide how to respond. Normally, a Borg error results in a borgmatic
error, while a Borg warning or success doesn't.

But if that default behavior isn't sufficient for your needs, you can
customize how borgmatic interprets [Borg's exit
codes](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage/general.html#return-codes).
For instance, to elevate Borg warnings to errors, thereby causing borgmatic to
error on them, use the following borgmatic configuration:

```yaml
borg_exit_codes:
   - exit_code: 1
     treat_as: error
```

Be aware though that Borg exits with a warning code for a variety of benign
situations such as files changing while they're being read, so this example
may not meet your needs. Keep reading though for more granular exit code
configuration.

Here's an example that squashes Borg errors to warnings:

```yaml
borg_exit_codes:
   - exit_code: 2
     treat_as: warning
```

Be careful with this example though, because it prevents borgmatic from
erroring when Borg errors, which may not be desirable.


### More granular configuration

<span class="minilink minilink-addedin">New in Borg version 1.4</span> Borg
support for [more granular exit
codes](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/1.4-maint/usage/general.html#return-codes)
means that you can configure borgmatic to respond to specific Borg conditions.
See the full list of [Borg 1.4 error and warning exit
codes](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/1.4.0b1/internals/frontends.html#message-ids).
The `rc:` numeric value there tells you the exit code for each.

For instance, this borgmatic configuration elevates all Borg backup file
permission warnings (exit code `105`)—and only those warnings—to errors:

```yaml
borg_exit_codes:
   - exit_code: 105
     treat_as: error
```

The following configuration does that *and* elevates backup file not found
warnings (exit code `107`) to errors as well:

```yaml
borg_exit_codes:
   - exit_code: 105
     treat_as: error
   - exit_code: 107
     treat_as: error
```

If you don't know the exit code for a particular Borg error or warning you're
experiencing, you can usually find it in your borgmatic output when
`--verbosity 2` is enabled. For instance, here's a snippet of that output when
a backup file is not found:

```
/noexist: stat: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/noexist'
...
terminating with warning status, rc 107
```

So if you want to configure borgmatic to treat this as an error instead of a
warning, the exit status to use is `107`.