Installation

Packages

Note that if at any point the package you’re trying to use is outdated, you always have the option to use an official binary from the restic project.

These are up to date binaries, built in a reproducible and verifiable way, that you can download and run without having to do additional installation work.

Please see the Official Binaries section below for various downloads. Official binaries can be updated in place by using the restic self-update command.

Alpine Linux

On Alpine Linux you can install the restic package from the official community repos, e.g. using apk:

$ apk add restic

Arch Linux

On Arch Linux, there is a package called restic installed from the official community repos, e.g. with pacman -S:

$ pacman -S restic

Debian

On Debian, there’s a package called restic which can be installed from the official repos, e.g. with apt-get:

$ apt-get install restic

Fedora

restic can be installed using dnf:

$ dnf install restic

If you used restic from copr previously, remove the copr repo as follows to avoid any conflicts:

$ dnf copr remove copart/restic

macOS

If you are using macOS, you can install restic using the homebrew package manager:

$ brew install restic

You may also install it using MacPorts:

$ sudo port install restic

Nix & NixOS

If you are using Nix / NixOS there is a package available named restic. It can be installed using nix-env:

$ nix-env --install restic

OpenBSD

On OpenBSD 6.3 and greater, you can install restic using pkg_add:

# pkg_add restic

FreeBSD

On FreeBSD (11 and probably later versions), you can install restic using pkg install:

# pkg install restic

openSUSE

On openSUSE (leap 15.0 and greater, and tumbleweed), you can install restic using the zypper package manager:

# zypper install restic

RHEL & CentOS

For RHEL / CentOS Stream 8 & 9 restic can be installed from the EPEL repository:

$ dnf install epel-release
$ dnf install restic

For RHEL7/CentOS there is a copr repository available, you can try the following:

$ yum install yum-plugin-copr
$ yum copr enable copart/restic
$ yum install restic

If that doesn’t work, you can try adding the repository directly, for CentOS6 use:

$ yum-config-manager --add-repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/copart/restic/repo/epel-6/copart-restic-epel-6.repo

For CentOS7 use:

$ yum-config-manager --add-repo https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/copart/restic/repo/epel-7/copart-restic-epel-7.repo

Solus

restic can be installed from the official repo of Solus via the eopkg package manager:

$ eopkg install restic

Windows

restic can be installed using Scoop:

scoop install restic

Using this installation method, restic.exe will automatically be available in the PATH. It can be called from cmd.exe or PowerShell by typing restic.

Official Binaries

Stable Releases

You can download the latest stable release versions of restic from the restic release page. These builds are considered stable and releases are made regularly in a controlled manner.

There’s both pre-compiled binaries for different platforms as well as the source code available for download. Just download and run the one matching your system.

On your first installation, if you desire, you can verify the integrity of your downloads by testing the SHA-256 checksums listed in SHA256SUMS and verifying the integrity of the file SHA256SUMS with the PGP signature in SHA256SUMS.asc. The PGP signature was created using the key (0x91A6868BD3F7A907):

pub   4096R/91A6868BD3F7A907 2014-11-01
      Key fingerprint = CF8F 18F2 8445 7597 3F79  D4E1 91A6 868B D3F7 A907
      uid                          Alexander Neumann <alexander@bumpern.de>
      sub   4096R/D5FC2ACF4043FDF1 2014-11-01

Once downloaded, the official binaries can be updated in place using the restic self-update command (needs restic 0.9.3 or later):

$ restic version
restic 0.9.3 compiled with go1.11.2 on linux/amd64

$ restic self-update
find latest release of restic at GitHub
latest version is 0.9.4
download file SHA256SUMS
download SHA256SUMS
download file SHA256SUMS
download SHA256SUMS.asc
GPG signature verification succeeded
download restic_0.9.4_linux_amd64.bz2
downloaded restic_0.9.4_linux_amd64.bz2
saved 12115904 bytes in ./restic
successfully updated restic to version 0.9.4

$ restic version
restic 0.9.4 compiled with go1.12.1 on linux/amd64

The self-update command uses the GPG signature on the files uploaded to GitHub to verify their authenticity. No external programs are necessary.

Note

Please be aware that the user executing the restic self-update command must have the permission to replace the restic binary. If you want to save the downloaded restic binary into a different file, pass the file name via the option --output.

Unstable Builds

Another option is to use the latest builds for the master branch, available on the restic beta download site. These too are pre-compiled and ready to run, and a new version is built every time a push is made to the master branch.

Windows

On Windows, put the restic.exe binary into %SystemRoot%\System32 to use restic in scripts without the need for absolute paths to the binary. This requires administrator rights.

Docker Container

We’re maintaining a bare docker container with just a few files and the restic binary, you can get it with docker pull like this:

$ docker pull restic/restic

The container is also available on the GitHub Container Registry:

$ docker pull ghcr.io/restic/restic

Restic relies on the hostname for various operations. Make sure to set a static hostname using –hostname when creating a Docker container, otherwise Docker will assign a random hostname each time.

From Source

restic is written in the Go programming language and you need at least Go version 1.18. Building for Solaris requires at least Go version 1.20. Building restic may also work with older versions of Go, but that’s not supported. See the Getting started 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

You can easily cross-compile restic for all supported platforms, just supply the target OS and platform via the command-line options like this (for Windows and FreeBSD respectively):

$ go run build.go --goos windows --goarch amd64

$ go run build.go --goos freebsd --goarch 386

$ go run build.go --goos linux --goarch arm --goarm 6

$ go run build.go --goos solaris --goarch amd64

The resulting binary is statically linked and does not require any libraries.

At the moment, the only tested compiler for restic is the official Go compiler. Building restic with gccgo may work, but is not supported.

Autocompletion

Restic can write out man pages and bash/fish/zsh/powershell compatible autocompletion scripts:

$ ./restic generate --help

The "generate" command writes automatically generated files (like the man pages
and the auto-completion files for bash, fish, zsh and powershell).

Usage:
  restic generate [flags] [command]

Flags:
      --bash-completion file   write bash completion file
      --fish-completion file   write fish completion file
  -h, --help                   help for generate
      --man directory          write man pages to directory
      --powershell-completion  write powershell completion file
      --zsh-completion file    write zsh completion file

Example for using sudo to write a bash completion script directly to the system-wide location:

$ sudo ./restic generate --bash-completion /etc/bash_completion.d/restic
writing bash completion file to /etc/bash_completion.d/restic

Example for using sudo to write a zsh completion script directly to the system-wide location:

$ sudo ./restic generate --zsh-completion /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_restic
writing zsh completion file to /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_restic

Note

The path for the --bash-completion option may vary depending on the operating system used, e.g. /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/restic in Debian and derivatives. Please look up the correct path in the appropriate documentation.