# Local backup of remote server

**URL:** https://kopia.discourse.group/t/local-backup-of-remote-server/8812
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 26, 2026, 11:43am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/local-backup-of-remote-server/8812 "2026-02-26T11:43:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![parszab](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c77e96/32.png) [@parszab](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/parszab)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2026, 11:43am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/local-backup-of-remote-server/8812/1 "2026-02-26T11:43:16Z")

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Hi All,

I’m in need of a bit of help.

I’m trying to set up a backup flow for my VPS, and my approach was:

1. I run a backup of e.g. `/etc` and other folders to `/opt/backup` – now I have to do this as root, because only root can access the backed up files
2. and I would like to **pull** sync the repository to my home PC – I though I can do this with:
  1. connecting to it (via kopia connect sftp) as my regular user on the VPS
  2. and after that sync it to a filesystem repo on my home PC

Now 2.1 already has two issues:

1. kopia cannot use my ssh-agent, can’t prompt for a password and I hate having a passwordless ssh-key file – but I created one
2. my regular user cannot read 700/600 folders and files in the repo.

This all makes me feel I’m not using the right approach. I know I could push the sync out home – but that requires a lot of set-up, port fwds, some dns solution etc – again, probably not the right approach.

What would be the kopia way of doing this?

Appreciate any help!

Szabolcs

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### Author: ![kapitainsky](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/kapitainsky/32/535_2.png) [@kapitainsky](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/kapitainsky)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2026, 1:59pm UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/local-backup-of-remote-server/8812/2 "2026-02-26T13:59:42Z")

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Kopia can only backup local files and directories. So if you want to pull data from a remote system you have to mount it locally.

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### Author: ![mabod](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/kopia.discourse.group/mabod/32/941_2.png) [@mabod](https://kopia.discourse.group/u/mabod)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2026, 8:04am UTC](https://kopia.discourse.group/t/local-backup-of-remote-server/8812/3 "2026-03-03T08:04:17Z")

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> [@parszab](#):
>
> What would be the kopia way of doing this?

You could mount the root directory of the remote server with sshfs:

`mount -t sshfs server:/ /tmp/mountpoint`

And the do the backup from `/tmp/mountpoint`

This is how I do it and it works very well.