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+date = 2023-06-28T16:00:00
+title = "Getting Started with Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage"
+description = "A simple tutorial to create a Backblaze B2 account for free and back up data from Linux."
++++
+
+## Overview
+
+Backblaze [B2 Cloud Storage](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html) is 
+an inexpensive and reliable on-demand cloud storage and backup solution.
+
+The service starts at $5/TB/month ($0.005/GB/month) with a download rate of 
+$0.01/GB/month.
+
+However, there are free tiers:
+
+- The first 10 GB of storage is free.
+- The first 1 GB of data downloaded each day is free.
+- Class A transactions are free.
+- The first 2500 Class B transactions each day are free.
+- The first 2500 Class C transactions each day are free.
+
+You can see which API calls fall into categories A, B, or C here: 
+[Pricing Organized by API 
+Calls](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/b2-transactions-price.html).
+
+For someone like me, who wants an offsite backup of their server's `/home/` 
+directory and various other server configs that fall under 10 GB total, 
+Backblaze is a great solution from a financial perspective.
+
+## Create An Account
+
+To start with Backblaze, you'll need to [create a free 
+account](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/sign-up.html) - no payment method is 
+required to sign up.
+
+Once you have an account, you can test out the service with their web GUI, their 
+mobile app, or their CLI tool. I'm going to use the CLI tool below to test a 
+file upload and then sync an entire directory to my Backblaze bucket.
+
+## Create a Bucket
+
+Before you can start uploading, you need to create a bucket. If you're familiar 
+with other object storage services, this will feel familiar. If not, it's pretty 
+simple to create one.
+
+As their webpage says:
+
+> A bucket is a container that holds files that are uploaded into B2 Cloud 
+> Storage. The bucket name must be globally unique and must have a minimum of 6 
+> characters. A limit of 100 buckets may be created per account. An unlimited 
+> number of files may be uploaded into a bucket.
+
+Once you click the `Create a Bucket` button on their webpage or mobile app, you 
+need to provide the following:
+
+- Bucket Unique Name
+- Files in Bucket are: `Private` or `Public`
+- Default Encryption: `Disable` or `Enable`
+- Object Lock: `Disable` or `Enable`
+
+For my bucket, I created a private bucket with encryption enabled and object 
+lock disabled.
+
+Once your bucket is created, you can test the upload/download feature on their 
+web GUI or mobile app! At this point, you have a fully functional bucket and 
+account.
+
+## Linux CLI Tool
+
+### Installation
+
+To install the `b2` CLI tool, you'll need to download it from the [CLI 
+Tools](https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-command-line-tools) page.
+I recommend copying the URL from the link that says `Linux` and using wget to 
+download it, as shown below.
+
+Once downloaded, make the file executable and move it to a location on your 
+`$PATH`, so that you can execute that command from anywhere on the machine.
+
+```sh
+wget <b2_cli_url>
+chmod +x b2_linux
+mv b2_linux /usr/bin/b2
+```
+
+### Log In
+
+The first step after installation is to log in. To do this, execute the 
+following command and provide your `<applicationKeyId>` and `<applicationKey>`.
+
+If you don't want to provide these values in the command itself, you can simply 
+execute the base command and it will request them in an interactive prompt.
+
+```sh
+# if you want to provide the keys directly:
+b2 authorize-account [<applicationKeyId>] [<applicationKey>]
+
+# or, if you don't want your keys in your shell history:
+b2 authorize-account
+```
+
+### Upload a Test File
+
+In order to test the functionality of the CLI tool, I'll start by uploading 
+a single test file to the bucket I created above.
+We can do this with the `upload_file` function.
+
+The command is issued as follows:
+
+```sh
+b2 upload_file <bucket_name> <local_file> <remote_file>
+```
+
+In my situation, I executed the following command with my username.
+
+```sh
+b2 upload_file my_unique_bucket /home/<user>/test.md test.md
+```
+
+To confirm that the file was uploaded successfully, list the files in your 
+bucket:
+
+```sh
+b2 ls <bucket_name>
+```
+
+```txt
+test.md
+```
+
+### Sync a Directory
+
+If you have numerous files, you can use the `sync` function to perform
+functionality similar to `rsync`, where you can check what's in your bucket 
+and sync anything that is new or modified.
+
+The command is issued as follows:
+
+```sh
+b2 sync <source file location> <B2 bucket destination>
+```
+
+In my case, I can sync my user's entire home directory to my bucket without 
+specifying any of the files directly:
+
+```sh
+b2 sync /home/<user>/ "b2://<bucketName>/home/<user>"
+```
+
+## Caveats
+
+### Timing of Updates to the Web GUI
+
+When performing actions over a bucket, there is a slight delay in the web 
+GUI when inspecting a bucket or its file.
+Note that simple actions such as uploading or deleting files may have a 
+delay of a few minutes up to 24 hours.
+In my experience (<10 GB and ~20,000 files), any actions took only a few 
+minutes to update across clients.
+
+### Symlinks
+
+Note that symlinks are resolved by b2, so if you have a link from 
+`/home/<user>/nas-storage` that symlinks out to a `/mnt/nas-storage` folder 
+that has 10TB of data, `b2` will resolve that link and start uploading all 10TB 
+of data linked within the folder.
+
+If you're not sure if you have any symlinks, a symlink will look like this 
+(note the `->` symbol):
+
+```sh
+> ls -lha
+lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   20 Jun 28 13:32 nas -> /mnt/nas-storage/
+```
+
+You can recursively find symlink in a path with the following command:
+
+```sh
+ls -lR /path/to/search | grep '^l'
+```