bup-midx(1) Bup 0.33.10+
Author: Avery Pennarun apenwarr@gmail.com
Date: 2026-01-28

# NAME

bup-midx - create a multi-index (`.midx`) file from several `.idx` files

# SYNOPSIS

bup midx [-o outfile] <-a|-f|idxnames…>

# DESCRIPTION

`bup midx` creates a multi-index (`.midx`) file from one or more git pack index (`.idx`) files.

Note: you should no longer need to run this command by hand. It gets run automatically by `bup-save`(1) and similar commands.

# OPTIONS

-o, --output=filename.midx
  use the given output filename for the `.midx` file. Default is auto-generated.
-a, --auto
  automatically generate new `.midx` files for any `.idx` files where it would be appropriate.
-f, --force
  force generation of a single new `.midx` file containing all your `.idx` files, even if other `.midx` files already exist. This will result in the fastest backup performance, but may take a long time to run.
--dir=packdir
  specify the directory containing the `.idx`/`.midx` files to work with. The default is `$BUP_DIR/objects/pack`.
--max-files
  maximum number of `.idx` files to open at a time. You can use this if you have an especially small number of file descriptors available, so that midx can complete (though possibly non-optimally) even if it can’t open all your `.idx` files at once. The default value of this option should be fine for most people.
--check
  validate a `.midx` file by ensuring that all objects in its contained `.idx` files exist inside the `.midx`. May be useful for debugging.

# EXAMPLES

    $ bup midx -a
    Merging 21 indexes (2278559 objects).
    Table size: 524288 (17 bits)
    Reading indexes: 100.00% (2278559/2278559), done.
    midx-b66d7c9afc4396187218f2936a87b865cf342672.midx

# DISCUSSION

By default, bup uses git-formatted pack files, which consist of a pack file (containing objects) and an idx file (containing a sorted list of object names and their offsets in the .pack file).

Normal idx files are convenient because it means you can use `git`(1) to access your backup datasets. However, idx files can get slow when you have a lot of very large packs (which git typically doesn’t have, but bup often does).

bup `.midx` files consist of a single sorted list of all the objects contained in all the .pack files it references. This list can be binary searched in about log2(m) steps, where m is the total number of objects.

To further speed up the search, midx files also have a variable-sized fanout table that reduces the first n steps of the binary search. With the help of this fanout table, bup can narrow down which page of the midx file a given object id would be in (if it exists) with a single lookup. Thus, typical searches will only need to swap in two pages: one for the fanout table, and one for the object id.

midx files are most useful when creating new backups, since searching for a nonexistent object in the repository necessarily requires searching through all the index files to ensure that it does not exist. (Searching for objects that do exist can be optimized; for example, consecutive objects are often stored in the same pack, so we can search that one first using an MRU algorithm.)

# SEE ALSO

`bup-save`(1), `bup-margin`(1), `bup-memtest`(1)

# BUP

Part of the `bup`(1) suite.