Thanks for using restic. This document will give you an overview of the basic functionality provided by restic. # Building/installing restic If you are using Mac OS X, you can install restic using the [homebrew](http://brew.sh/) packet manager: $ brew tap restic/restic $ brew install restic On archlinux, there is a package called `restic-git` which can be installed from AUR, e.g. with `pacaur`: $ pacaur -S restic-git At debian stable you can install 'go' directly from the repositories (as root): $ apt-get install golang-go after installation of 'go' go straight forward to 'git clone [...]' If you are using Linux, BSD or Windows, the only way to install restic on your system right now is to compile it from source. restic is written in the Go programming language and you need at least Go version 1.3. See the [Getting started](https://golang.org/doc/install) guide of the Go project for instructions how to install Go. In order to build restic from source, execute the following steps: $ git clone https://github.com/restic/restic [...] $ cd restic $ go run build.go At the moment, the only tested compiler for restic is the official Go compiler. Building restic with gccgo may work, but is not supported. Usage help is available: $ ./restic --help Usage: restic [OPTIONS] Application Options: -r, --repo= Repository directory to backup to/restore from Help Options: -h, --help Show this help message Available commands: backup save file/directory cache manage cache cat dump something find find a file/directory fsck check the repository init create repository key manage keys list lists data ls list files restore restore a snapshot snapshots show snapshots version display version Similar to programs such as `git`, restic has a number of sub-commands. You can see these commands in the listing above. Each sub-command may have own command-line options, and there is a help option for each command which lists them, e.g. for the `backup` command: $ ./restic backup --help Usage: restic [OPTIONS] backup DIR/FILE [DIR/FILE] [...] The backup command creates a snapshot of a file or directory Application Options: -r, --repo= Repository directory to backup to/restore from --cache-dir= Directory to use as a local cache -q, --quiet Do not output comprehensive progress report (false) --no-lock Do not lock the repo, this allows some operations on read-only repos. (false) Help Options: -h, --help Show this help message [backup command options] -p, --parent= use this parent snapshot (default: last snapshot in repo that has the same target) -f, --force Force re-reading the target. Overrides the "parent" flag -e, --exclude= Exclude a pattern (can be specified multiple times) # Initialize a repository First, we need to create a "repository". This is the place where your backups will be saved at. In order to create a repository at `/tmp/backup`, run the following command and enter the same password twice: $ restic init --repo /tmp/backup enter password for new backend: enter password again: created restic backend 085b3c76b9 at /tmp/backup Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost. Remembering your password is important! If you lose it, you won't be able to access data stored in the repository. For automated backups, restic accepts the repository location in the environment variable `RESTIC_REPOSITORY` and also the password in the variable `RESTIC_PASSWORD`. ## Password prompt on Windows At the moment, restic only supports the default Windows console interaction. If you use emulation environments like [MSYS2](https://msys2.github.io/) or [Cygwin](https://www.cygwin.com/), which use terminals like `Mintty` or `rxvt`, you may get a password error: You can workaround this by using a special tool called `winpty` (look [here](https://sourceforge.net/p/msys2/wiki/Porting/) and [here](https://github.com/rprichard/winpty) for detail information). On MSYS2, you can install `winpty` as follows: $ pacman -S winpty $ winpty restic -r /tmp/backup init # Create a snapshot Now we're ready to backup some data. The contents of a directory at a specific point in time is called a "snapshot" in restic. Run the following command and enter the repository password you chose above again: $ restic -r /tmp/backup backup ~/work enter password for repository: scan [/home/user/work] scanned 764 directories, 1816 files in 0:00 [0:29] 100.00% 54.732 MiB/s 1.582 GiB / 1.582 GiB 2580 / 2580 items 0 errors ETA 0:00 duration: 0:29, 54.47MiB/s snapshot 40dc1520 saved As you can see, restic created a backup of the directory and was pretty fast! The specific snapshot just created is identified by a sequence of hexadecimal characters, `40dc1520` in this case. If you run the command again, restic will create another snapshot of your data, but this time it's even faster. This is de-duplication at work! $ restic -r /tmp/backup backup ~/shared/work/web enter password for repository: using parent snapshot 40dc1520aa6a07b7b3ae561786770a01951245d2367241e71e9485f18ae8228c scan [/home/user/work] scanned 764 directories, 1816 files in 0:00 [0:00] 100.00% 0B/s 1.582 GiB / 1.582 GiB 2580 / 2580 items 0 errors ETA 0:00 duration: 0:00, 6572.38MiB/s snapshot 79766175 saved You can even backup individual files in the same repository. $ restic -r /tmp/backup backup ~/work.txt scan [~/work.txt] scanned 0 directories, 1 files in 0:00 [0:00] 100.00% 0B/s 220B / 220B 1 / 1 items 0 errors ETA 0:00 duration: 0:00, 0.03MiB/s snapshot 31f7bd63 saved In fact several hosts may use the same repository to backup directories and files leading to a greater de-duplication. You can exclude folders and files by specifying exclude-patterns. Either specify them with multiple `--exclude`'s or one `--exclude-file` $ cat exclude # exclude go-files *.go # exclude foo/x/y/z/bar foo/x/bar foo/bar foo/**/bar $ restic -r /tmp/backup backup ~/work --exclude=*.c --exclude-file=exclude Patterns use [`filepath.Glob`](https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob) internally, see [`filepath.Match`](https://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Match) for syntax. Additionally `**` exludes arbitrary subdirectories. Environment-variables in exclude-files are expanded with [`os.ExpandEnv`](https://golang.org/pkg/os/#ExpandEnv). # List all snapshots Now, you can list all the snapshots stored in the repository: $ restic -r /tmp/backup snapshots enter password for repository: ID Date Source Directory ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 40dc1520 2015-05-08 21:38:30 kasimir /home/user/work 79766175 2015-05-08 21:40:19 kasimir /home/user/work # Restore a snapshot Restoring a snapshot is as easy as it sounds, just use the following command to restore the contents of the latest snapshot to `/tmp/restore-work`: $ restic -r /tmp/backup restore 79766175 --target ~/tmp/restore-work enter password for repository: restoring to /tmp/restore-work # Manage repository keys The `key` command allows you to set multiple access keys or passwords per repository. In fact, you can use the `list`, `add`, `remove` and `passwd` sub-commands to manage these keys very precisely: $ restic -r /tmp/backup key list enter password for repository: ID User Host Created ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *eb78040b username kasimir 2015-08-12 13:29:57 $ restic -r /tmp/backup key add enter password for repository: enter password for new key: enter password again: saved new key as $ restic -r backup key list enter password for repository: ID User Host Created ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5c657874 username kasimir 2015-08-12 13:35:05 *eb78040b username kasimir 2015-08-12 13:29:57 # Check integrity and consistency Imagine your repository is saved on a server that has a faulty hard drive, or even worse, attackers get privileged access and modify your backup with the intention to make you restore malicious data: $ sudo echo "boom" >> backup/index/d795ffa99a8ab8f8e42cec1f814df4e48b8f49129360fb57613df93739faee97 In order to detect these things, it is a good idea to regularly use the `check` command to test whether everything is alright, your precious backup data is consistent and the integrity is unharmed: $ restic -r /tmp/backup check Load indexes ciphertext verification failed Trying to restore a snapshot which has been modified as shown above will yield the same error: $ restic -r /tmp/backup restore 79766175 --target ~/tmp/restore-work Load indexes ciphertext verification failed # Mount a repository Browsing your backup as a regular file system is also very easy. First, create a mount point such as `/mnt/restic` and then use the following command to serve the repository with FUSE: $ mkdir /mnt/restic $ restic -r /tmp/backup mount /mnt/restic enter password for repository: Now serving /tmp/backup at /tmp/restic Don't forget to umount after quitting! Windows doesn't support FUSE directly. Projects like [dokan](http://dokan-dev.github.io/) try to fill the gap. We haven't tested it yet, but we'd like to hear about your experience. For setup information see [dokan FUSE in dokan's wiki](https://github.com/dokan-dev/dokany/wiki/FUSE). # Create an SFTP repository In order to backup data via SFTP, you must first set up a server with SSH and let it know your public key. Passwordless login is really important since restic fails to connect to the repository if the server prompts for credentials. Once the server is configured, the setup of the SFTP repository can simply be achieved by changing the URL scheme in the `init` command: $ restic -r sftp://user@host//tmp/backup init enter password for new backend: enter password again: created restic backend f1c6108821 at sftp://user@host//tmp/backup Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost. Yes, that's really two slash (`/`) characters after the host name, here the directory `/tmp/backup` on the server is meant. If you'd rather like to create a repository in the user's home directory on the server, use the location `sftp://user@host/foo/bar/repo`. In this case the directory is relative to the user's home directory: `foo/bar/repo`. # Create an Amazon S3 repository Restic can backup data to any Amazon S3 bucket. However, in this case, changing the URL scheme is not enough since Amazon uses special security credentials to sign HTTP requests. By consequence, you must first setup the following environment variables with the credentials you obtained while creating the bucket. $ export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID= $ export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY= You can then easily initialize a repository that uses your Amazon S3 as a backend. $ restic -r s3://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket_name init enter password for new backend: enter password again: created restic backend eefee03bbd at s3://s3.amazonaws.com/bucket_name Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost. For an S3-compatible repository without TLS available, use the alternative URI protocol `s3:http://server:port/bucket_name`. # Debugging restic The program can be built with debug support like this: $ go run build.go -tags debug Afterwards, extensive debug messages are written to the file in environment variable `RESTIC_DEBUG`, e.g.: $ RESTIC_DEBUG=/tmp/restic-debug.log restic backup ~/work If you suspect that there is a bug, you can have a look at the debug log. Please be aware that the debug log might contain sensitive information such as file and directory names. # Under the hood: Browse repository objects Internally, a repository stores data of several different types described in the [design documentation](https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/Design.md). You can `list` objects such as blobs, packs, index, snapshots, keys or locks with the following command: ```shell $ restic -r /tmp/backup list snapshots d369ccc7d126594950bf74f0a348d5d98d9e99f3215082eb69bf02dc9b3e464c ``` The `find` command searches for a given [pattern](http://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Match) in the repository. $ restic -r backup find test.txt debug log file restic.log debug enabled enter password for repository: found 1 matching entries in snapshot 196bc5760c909a7681647949e80e5448e276521489558525680acf1bd428af36 -rw-r--r-- 501 20 5 2015-08-26 14:09:57 +0200 CEST path/to/test.txt The `cat` command allows you to display the JSON representation of the objects or its raw content. $ restic -r /tmp/backup cat snapshot d369ccc7d126594950bf74f0a348d5d98d9e99f3215082eb69bf02dc9b3e464c enter password for repository: { "time": "2015-08-12T12:52:44.091448856+02:00", "tree": "05cec17e8d3349f402576d02576a2971fc0d9f9776ce2f441c7010849c4ff5af", "paths": [ "/home/user/work" ], "hostname": "kasimir", "username": "username", "uid": 501, "gid": 20 }