Native Windows port

[ThomasWaldmann]

If borg could run directly on a normal Windows installation (via cmd, not requiring cygwin or other major runtime support), it could be useful for windows machines that do not have cygwin installed.

Notes:

Doing a native windows port is likely quite some work over a longer time, due to all the differences between windows and UNIX-like operating systems. Whether it can be done in a pretty (regarding to source code changes) and good working (regarding to practical use) way has to be seen.

Because of that, it will have to live in a separate branch of the repository at first (which should be regularly updated from master branch, so it is kept up-to-date and without potential merge conflicts).

At some time in the future, that branch might or might not get merged into master.

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💰 there is a bounty for this

I opened a (first) bounty for this - if you would like to see this happen, feel free to support this or a future, related bounty.

The goal and scope of this bounty is:

• have a borg codebase that is able to run on native windows (without cygwin or similar runtime requirements)
• working basic borg commands: init, create, list, extract, delete
• working unit tests (failures in some of them that test stuff not in scope of the bounty are acceptable)
• initial documentation for developers and users (how to set up dev environment, how to install on a user system)
• not required: encryption, special windows file attributes support (like ACLs, xattrs), VSS support, installer

[ThomasWaldmann]

See PR #947 (has been merged into "windows" branch now).

Superceded by: #986 (has been merged into "windows" branch now).

[ThomasWaldmann]

Thanks to @Anakonda for doing the native windows port!

The basics work, but it will for sure need more testing, fixes and enhancements - please file tickets for anything that shows up (make sure you mention "windows branch" for problems only happening in that branch).

[henfri]

Hello,

I would like to try borg under Windows.
I am aware of the standalone installer using cygwin. But for the project, I think testing of the native windows port would be useful, don't you think?

Is there any documentation on the native port? E.g. what python packages are needed.
For another project I use cx_freeze to freeze to create an executable. That would certainly help on this respect. What do you think?

Regards,
Hendrik

[henfri]

Hello,

I just saw that an executable is already created here:
https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/blob/windows/deployment/windows/buildwin32.py

That's good. Before deploying borg as native executable, an installer would be even better, but for testing, it is not needed I think.

If you would like people to test the native windows, I think that a compiled version of this branch would be needed. Is that available from somewhere?

Regards,
Hendrik

[Anakonda]

@henfri latest version is available here https://ci.appveyor.com/project/borgbackup/borg/build/artifacts

[Neurrone]

@Anakonda is this a native windows port, or does it install sigwin?

[henfri]

Cygwin, you mean?
By the looks it is the native built and does not need cygwin

Greetings,
Hendrik

[Neurrone]

@henfri thanks. Will try it, curious to see how it stacks up against rclone and duplicati