restic¶

To get started with a local repository, first define some environment variables

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=/srv/restic-repo
export RESTIC_PASSWORD=some-strong-password

Initialize the repository (first time only)

restic init

Create your first backup

restic backup ~/work

Backup individual file

restic -r /srv/restic-repo backup ~/work.txt

You can list all the snapshots you created with

restic snapshots
ID        Date                 Host    Tags   Directory        Size
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
40dc1520  2015-05-08 21:38:30  kasimir        /home/user/work  20.643GiB
79766175  2015-05-08 21:40:19  kasimir        /home/user/work  20.645GiB
bdbd3439  2015-05-08 21:45:17  luigi          /home/art        3.141GiB
590c8fc8  2015-05-08 21:47:38  kazik          /srv             580.200MiB
9f0bc19e  2015-05-08 21:46:11  luigi          /srv             572.180MiB

You can filter the listing by directory path

restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --path="/srv"

Or filter by host

restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --host luigi

List files in a snapshot

restic ls 073a90db

List the latest snapshot

restic ls --host kasimir latest

List a specific directory

restic ls latest /home

List recursively

restic ls --recursive latest /home

List more details about a snapshot

restic ls --long latest

Dry run with list of changes

restic -r /srv/restic-repo backup ~/work --dry-run -vv | grep "added"

Copy snapshots between repos

restic -r /srv/restic-repo-copy copy --from-repo /srv/restic-repo --verbose

Remove files from snapshots

restic -r /srv/restic-repo rewrite --exclude secret-file
restic -r /srv/restic-repo rewrite --exclude secret-file 6160ddb2

Modify metadata of snapshots

restic rewrite --new-host newhost --new-time "1999-01-01 11:11:11"

You can restore a backup by noting the snapshot ID you want and running

restic restore --target /tmp/restore-work your-snapshot-ID

It is a good idea to periodically check your repository’s metadata

restic check

or full data

restic check --read-data

Dry run

restic restore --target /tmp/restore-work --dry-run --verbose=2 latest

Printing files to stdout

restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump latest production.sql | mysql

Dump the file contents and folder structure to a file

restic -r /srv/restic-repo dump latest / --target /home/linux.user/output.tar -a tar

Check if a repo is already initialized

restic -r /srv/restic-repo cat config

Exclude files

cat <<EOF > excludes.txt

exclude go-files

*.go

exclude foo/x/y/z/bar foo/x/bar foo/bar

foo/**/bar
EOF
restic -r /srv/restic-repo backup ~/work --exclude="*.c" --exclude-file=excludes.txt