borg passphrase is incorrect issue, Linux vs. macOS client

[andreaseberharter]

Have you checked borgbackup docs, FAQ, and open GitHub issues?

Yes

Is this a BUG / ISSUE report or a QUESTION?

QUESTION

System information. For client/server mode post info for both machines.

Your borg version (borg -V).

Client: borg 1.4.0
Server: hetzner storage box

Operating system (distribution) and version.

macOS Sonama, homebrew install

Hardware / network configuration, and filesystems used.

How much data is handled by borg?

20GB

Full borg commandline that lead to the problem (leave away excludes and passwords)

borg mount ssh://[email protected]:23/~/repro.borg /local/mnt/dir

Describe the problem you're observing.

I have a client running Ubuntu 24.04, borg 1.4.0 which is backing up daily to a hetzner storage box server. I understand how I can restore data from the repository to the client our mount it by following the commands in the FAQ

I want to mount the repository on my macOS client, but running the same command and specifying the correct borg-passphrase I always get error message: passphrase supplied in BORG_PASSPHRASE, by BORG_PASSCOMMAND or via BORG_PASSPHRASE_FD is incorrect.

Can you reproduce the problem? If so, describe how. If not, describe troubleshooting steps you took before opening the issue.

I have read through the docs and FAQs and search the web but I can not find the correct documentation. I am sure this has been done before and I am just missing a simple step :S Please be so kind and point me to the right direction.

I can access the hetzner storage box via SSH using a ssh_key, so it is not a SSH issue. I found similar questions on reddit, do I have to init the repository locally to mount it? I am so confused...

Include any warning/errors/backtraces from the system logs

[ThomasWaldmann]

Do you have any chars outside pure ASCII or accent chars in your pw?

While it is not a problem for borg to process them, it might be a problem for you to reproduce the exact same utf-8 byte sequence due to keyboard and normalisation differences.

If that is the case, change the pw and just use 0..9 a..z A..Z.

[andreaseberharter]

Thank you Thomas for your quick reply :)

Yes, I do have a crazy amount of special chars, maybe a bit excessive :S

Now I am getting the same error message when I try to change the passphrase from the Linux client executing:
borg key change-passphrase -v ssh://[email protected]:23/~/repro.borg

I used borgmatic to setup the borg repository and store the password in $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase. So, I also tried:

export BORG_REPO="ssh://[email protected]:23/~/repro.borg"
export BORG_PASSCOMMAND="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"
borg key change-passphrase

with the same result passphrase supplied in BORG_PASSPHRASE, by BORG_PASSCOMMAND or via BORG_PASSPHRASE_FD is incorrect.

Is there any other way I could change the passphrase?

[ThomasWaldmann]

export BORG_PASSCOMMAND="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"

That looks incorrect, guess you meant BORG_PASSPHRASE?

[andreaseberharter]

Yes, of course, sorry my mistake, I meant export BORG_PASSPHRASE="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"

The funny thing though, if I run borgmatic list or borgmatic info there is no error message and I get the returns as expected:

borgmatic list
storagebox: Listing archives
...
backup-2024-10-25T00:43:54.373614   Fri, 2024-10-25 00:43:55 [4c0def73e780d0b60849310fe04bd47ea939eacf48f01c7a977377e2f3748497]
backup-2024-10-26T01:32:45.015218   Sat, 2024-10-26 01:32:46 [b459c20b7e18c97b5b865493a33700c476763c81024a9279b302a29a5f807f13]
backup-2024-10-27T02:45:22.548788   Sun, 2024-10-27 02:45:24 [dd751c3d57d115482d432c8a38931b05b8cf0807cda7fd2e92474e4356a9a8a8]
...

[andreaseberharter]

This is interesting, I installed borgmatic on macOS client, and copied over the .borg-passphrase and borgmatic/config.yaml config files

brew install borgmatic
~/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase
~/.config/borgmatic/config.yaml

Now I can can list and mount the repository:

borgmatic list --match-archives "*"   
borgmatic mount --mount-point ~/repro

Well, it works now to access the repository from macOS client, but I still don't understand why it does not work with borg alone.

[jdchristensen]

export BORG_PASSCOMMAND="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"

That looks incorrect, guess you meant BORG_PASSPHRASE?

Shouldn't BORG_PASSPHRASE actually contain the passphrase, not a command for producing the passphrase? And BORG_PASSCOMMAND would contain a command that produces the passphrase? So the quoted export above looks sensible to me. Or one could do export BORG_PASSPHRASE=`cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase` to do command substitution.

[ThomasWaldmann]

Ehrm, yeah, @jdchristensen is of course correct.

Somehow I misread and thought the shell was executing the command, but with simple double-quotes, it doesn't.

[andreaseberharter]

Thank you @jdchristensen, I have tried the following commands on the command line:

export BORG_PASSCOMMAND="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"   # BORG_PASSCOMMAND
export BORG_PASSPHRASE="cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase"    # double quotes "
export BORG_PASSPHRASE='cat $HOME/.config/borg/.borg-passphrase'    # single quotes '
export BORG_PASSPHRASE="super long borg-passphrase"                 # just the passphrase

All give me the same error when running borg info afterwards.

Also, if I don't export BORG_PASSPHRASE I am being prompted for it, once the connection has been established - not sure if pasting works, because I could never type the passphrase on the keyboard.

Is there any way I can increase debug info to understand what am I doing wrong?

[ThomasWaldmann]

line 1 and line 4 should work, 2 and 3 are incorrect.

Please note that the last command in @jdchristensen's post has backticks, not single quotes.

[jdchristensen]

Also note that BORG_PASSPHRASE overrides BORG_PASSCOMMAND, so if you have a bogus setting in BORG_PASSPHRASE, then BORG_PASSCOMMAND will probably be ignored and things won't work.