Unlocking Features with plakar login

Last reviewed: 2025-12-08 / Plakar v1.0.6

By default, Plakar works without requiring you to create an account. You can back up and restore your data with just a few commands, without depending on external services.

Logging in unlocks additional features. These features are entirely opt-in.

Why log in?

As of today, logging in is useful for two main reasons:

1. Installing pre-built packages from Plakar’s servers (integrations such as S3, SFTP, rclone).
2. Enabling alerting, which provides reporting dashboards and email notifications.

More features may require login in the future.

1. Install pre-built packages

Plakar provides multiple integrations, such as:

• S3
• SFTP
• rclone

But also many others.

You can build these integrations from source or install the pre-built versions hosted on Plakar’s servers using the UI or plakar pkg add.

2. Alerting

When logged in and alerting is enabled, Plakar sends non-sensitive metadata to Plakar’s servers whenever you run backup, restore, sync, or maintenance operations.

This metadata powers:

• A reporting dashboard in the UI
• Email notifications about backup status

Backup data is never sent to Plakar.

Alerting notifies you quickly if something breaks — especially useful for individuals and small teams without dedicated monitoring.

How to log in

Using the UI

1. Run plakar ui.
2. Click the Login button.
3. Open Settings to enable alerting and email reporting.

Using the CLI

Log in using GitHub or email:

1plakar login -github
2plakar login -email myemail@domain.com

After logging in, enable alerting (optional):

1plakar service enable alerting
2plakar service set alerting report.email=true

Non-interactive login (CI, SSH, automation)

In some environments (CI pipelines, remote servers, automated jobs), an interactive login prompt is not possible. Plakar provides a token-based workflow for these cases.

Step 1: Generate a token on a machine where you can log in

Run:

1plakar login
2plakar token create

This prints a token, for example:

eyJhbGc......

You can now use this token on any system where interactive login is not possible.

Step 2: Use the token in the non-interactive environment

Set the environment variable:

1export PLAKAR_TOKEN=eyJhbGc......

Plakar automatically uses this token for authentication.

Step 3: Persist the token (optional)

If you want to save the token in the configuration on that machine, run:

1plakar login -env

The -env flag reads PLAKAR_TOKEN and saves it into the local configuration.