borg-with-lock(1)

✨ borg-with-lock — bestie edition ✨

okay so this is the borg-with-lock page from the borg backup tool manual, and honestly? it's giving "hold my lock while I do a thing" energy 💅

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🎀 NAME 🎀

okay so borg-with-lock — it runs a user-specified command with the repository lock held. that's it. that's the whole vibe. you hand it a command, it grabs the lock, and your command gets to do its little thing while nobody else can touch the repo. iconic behavior fr fr 🔥

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

borg [common options] with-lock [options] COMMAND [ARGS...]

literally just that. the [common options] slot is where all the shared Borg stuff goes, [options] is this command's own biz, and then COMMAND [ARGS...] is your moment, bestie 👑

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like, this command runs a user-specified command while locking the repository. no cap. here's an example so you can see it in the wild:

$ BORG_REPO=/mnt/borgrepo borg with-lock rsync -av /mnt/borgrepo /somewhere/else/borgrepo

the way it works is SO satisfying, let me walk you through it:

1. it first tries to acquire the lock — which is the fancy way of saying it makes sure that no other operation is running in the repository 🫶
2. then it executes the given command as a subprocess and waits for it to finish (patient queen behavior, we love to see it) 🌈
3. then it releases the lock 🔓
4. and finally it returns the user command's return code as Borg's return code 💖

so yeah, whatever your command exits with, that's what you get back. simple. clean. slay.

💀 important note, do NOT skip this one bestie: if you copy a repository with the lock held, the lock will be present in the copy. yep, it comes along for the ride 🙈 Borg removes such a leftover lock automatically, but only after a safety period of about half an hour, so to use Borg on the copy right away, first run borg break-lock on the copied repository. consider this your lil' PSA 🎀

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands. all the shared goodies live over there 💜

💅 arguments

• COMMAND — command to run. this is the thing you're handing over to Borg so it can be executed while the lock is held. your main character, basically.
• ARGS — command arguments. all the extra lil' bits and flags and paths that COMMAND needs. yes, plural, you can pass as many as you want 🍓

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• borg-common(1)

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⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

The Borg Collective 🫡 — legends, honestly. no notes.

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and that's the whole page! this was rendered for the borg backup tool, page borg-with-lock(1), dated 2026-10-07 ✨ go forth and hold that lock, bestie, you're gonna eat 💖🧚👑