Removing backup snapshots¶
All backup space is finite, so restic allows removing old snapshots.
This can be done either manually (by specifying a snapshot ID to remove)
or by using a policy that describes which snapshots to forget. For all
remove operations, two commands need to be called in sequence:
forget to remove a snapshot and prune to actually remove the
data that was referenced by the snapshot from the repository. This can
be automated with the --prune option of the forget command,
which runs prune automatically if snapshots have been removed.
Pruning snapshots can be a time-consuming process, depending on the amount of snapshots and data to process. During a prune operation, the repository is locked and backups cannot be completed. Please plan your pruning so that there’s time to complete it and it doesn’t interfere with regular backup runs.
It is advisable to run restic check after pruning, to make sure
you are alerted, should the internal data structures of the repository
be damaged.
Remove a single snapshot¶
The command snapshots can be used to list all snapshots in a
repository like this:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots
enter password for repository:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
40dc1520 2015-05-08 21:38:30 kasimir /home/user/work
79766175 2015-05-08 21:40:19 kasimir /home/user/work
bdbd3439 2015-05-08 21:45:17 luigi /home/art
590c8fc8 2015-05-08 21:47:38 kazik /srv
9f0bc19e 2015-05-08 21:46:11 luigi /srv
In order to remove the snapshot of /home/art, use the forget
command and specify the snapshot ID on the command line:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo forget bdbd3439
enter password for repository:
removed snapshot d3f01f63
Afterwards this snapshot is removed:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots
enter password for repository:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
40dc1520 2015-05-08 21:38:30 kasimir /home/user/work
79766175 2015-05-08 21:40:19 kasimir /home/user/work
590c8fc8 2015-05-08 21:47:38 kazik /srv
9f0bc19e 2015-05-08 21:46:11 luigi /srv
But the data that was referenced by files in this snapshot is still
stored in the repository. To cleanup unreferenced data, the prune
command must be run:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo prune
enter password for repository:
repository 33002c5e opened successfully, password is correct
loading all snapshots...
loading indexes...
finding data that is still in use for 4 snapshots
[0:00] 100.00% 4 / 4 snapshots
searching used packs...
collecting packs for deletion and repacking
[0:00] 100.00% 5 / 5 packs processed
to repack: 69 blobs / 1.078 MiB
this removes 67 blobs / 1.047 MiB
to delete: 7 blobs / 25.726 KiB
total prune: 74 blobs / 1.072 MiB
remaining: 16 blobs / 38.003 KiB
unused size after prune: 0 B (0.00% of remaining size)
repacking packs
[0:00] 100.00% 2 / 2 packs repacked
rebuilding index
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 packs processed
deleting obsolete index files
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 files deleted
removing 3 old packs
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 files deleted
done
Afterwards the repository is smaller.
You can automate this two-step process by using the --prune switch
to forget:
$ restic forget --keep-last 1 --prune
snapshots for host mopped, directories /home/user/work:
keep 1 snapshots:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4bba301e 2017-02-21 10:49:18 mopped /home/user/work
remove 1 snapshots:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8c02b94b 2017-02-21 10:48:33 mopped /home/user/work
1 snapshots have been removed, running prune
loading all snapshots...
loading indexes...
finding data that is still in use for 1 snapshots
[0:00] 100.00% 1 / 1 snapshots
searching used packs...
collecting packs for deletion and repacking
[0:00] 100.00% 5 / 5 packs processed
to repack: 69 blobs / 1.078 MiB
this removes 67 blobs / 1.047 MiB
to delete: 7 blobs / 25.726 KiB
total prune: 74 blobs / 1.072 MiB
remaining: 16 blobs / 38.003 KiB
unused size after prune: 0 B (0.00% of remaining size)
repacking packs
[0:00] 100.00% 2 / 2 packs repacked
rebuilding index
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 packs processed
deleting obsolete index files
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 files deleted
removing 3 old packs
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 files deleted
done
Removing snapshots according to a policy¶
Removing snapshots manually is tedious and error-prone, therefore restic
allows specifying which snapshots should be removed automatically
according to a policy. You can specify how many hourly, daily, weekly,
monthly and yearly snapshots to keep, any other snapshots are removed.
The most important command-line parameter here is --dry-run which
instructs restic to not remove anything but print which snapshots would
be removed.
When forget is run with a policy, restic loads the list of all
snapshots, then groups these by host name and list of directories. The grouping
options can be set with --group-by, to only group snapshots by paths and
tags use --group-by paths,tags. The policy is then applied to each group of
snapshots separately. This is a safety feature.
The forget command accepts the following parameters:
--keep-last nnever delete thenlast (most recent) snapshots--keep-hourly nfor the lastnhours in which a snapshot was made, keep only the last snapshot for each hour.--keep-daily nfor the lastndays which have one or more snapshots, only keep the last one for that day.--keep-weekly nfor the lastnweeks which have one or more snapshots, only keep the last one for that week.--keep-monthly nfor the lastnmonths which have one or more snapshots, only keep the last one for that month.--keep-yearly nfor the lastnyears which have one or more snapshots, only keep the last one for that year.--keep-tagkeep all snapshots which have all tags specified by this option (can be specified multiple times).--keep-within durationkeep all snapshots which have been made within the duration of the latest snapshot.durationneeds to be a number of years, months, days, and hours, e.g.2y5m7d3hwill keep all snapshots made in the two years, five months, seven days, and three hours before the latest snapshot.
Note
All calendar related --keep-* options work on the natural time
boundaries and not relative to when you run the forget command. Weeks
are Monday 00:00 -> Sunday 23:59, days 00:00 to 23:59, hours :00 to :59, etc.
Multiple policies will be ORed together so as to be as inclusive as possible for keeping snapshots.
Additionally, you can restrict removing snapshots to those which have a
particular hostname with the --host parameter, or tags with the
--tag option. When multiple tags are specified, only the snapshots
which have all the tags are considered. For example, the following command
removes all but the latest snapshot of all snapshots that have the tag foo:
$ restic forget --tag foo --keep-last 1
This command removes all but the last snapshot of all snapshots that have
either the foo or bar tag set:
$ restic forget --tag foo --tag bar --keep-last 1
To only keep the last snapshot of all snapshots with both the tag foo and
bar set use:
$ restic forget --tag foo,bar --keep-last 1
All the --keep-* options above only count
hours/days/weeks/months/years which have a snapshot, so those without a
snapshot are ignored.
For safety reasons, restic refuses to act on an “empty” policy. For example,
if one were to specify --keep-last 0 to forget all snapshots in the
repository, restic will respond that no snapshots will be removed. To delete
all snapshots, use --keep-last 1 and then finally remove the last
snapshot ID manually (by passing the ID to forget).
All snapshots are evaluated against all matching --keep-* counts. A
single snapshot on 2017-09-30 (Sat) will count as a daily, weekly and monthly.
Let’s explain this with an example: Suppose you have only made a backup on each Sunday for 12 weeks:
$ restic snapshots
repository f00c6e2a opened successfully, password is correct
ID Time Host Tags Paths
---------------------------------------------------------------
0a1f9759 2019-09-01 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
46cfe4d5 2019-09-08 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
f6b1f037 2019-09-15 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
eb430a5d 2019-09-22 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
8cf1cb9a 2019-09-29 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
5d33b116 2019-10-06 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
b9553125 2019-10-13 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
e1a7b58b 2019-10-20 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
8f8018c0 2019-10-27 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
59403279 2019-11-03 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
dfee9fb4 2019-11-10 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
e1ae2f40 2019-11-17 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
---------------------------------------------------------------
12 snapshots
Then forget --keep-daily 4 will keep the last four snapshots for the last
four Sundays, but remove the rest:
$ restic forget --keep-daily 4 --dry-run
repository f00c6e2a opened successfully, password is correct
Applying Policy: keep the last 4 daily snapshots
keep 4 snapshots:
ID Time Host Tags Reasons Paths
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8f8018c0 2019-10-27 11:00:00 mopped daily snapshot /home/user/work
59403279 2019-11-03 11:00:00 mopped daily snapshot /home/user/work
dfee9fb4 2019-11-10 11:00:00 mopped daily snapshot /home/user/work
e1ae2f40 2019-11-17 11:00:00 mopped daily snapshot /home/user/work
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 snapshots
remove 8 snapshots:
ID Time Host Tags Paths
---------------------------------------------------------------
0a1f9759 2019-09-01 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
46cfe4d5 2019-09-08 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
f6b1f037 2019-09-15 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
eb430a5d 2019-09-22 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
8cf1cb9a 2019-09-29 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
5d33b116 2019-10-06 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
b9553125 2019-10-13 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
e1a7b58b 2019-10-20 11:00:00 mopped /home/user/work
---------------------------------------------------------------
8 snapshots
The result of the forget --keep-daily operation does not depend on when it
is run, it will only count the days for which a snapshot exists. This is a
safety feature: it prevents restic from removing snapshots when no new ones are
created. Otherwise, running forget --keep-daily 4 on a Friday (without any
snapshot Monday to Thursday) would remove all snapshots!
Another example: Suppose you make daily backups for 100 years. Then
forget --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 5 --keep-monthly 12 --keep-yearly 75
will keep the most recent 7 daily snapshots, then 4 (remember, 7 dailies
already include a week!) last-day-of-the-weeks and 11 or 12
last-day-of-the-months (11 or 12 depends if the 5 weeklies cross a month).
And finally 75 last-day-of-the-year snapshots. All other snapshots are
removed.
Customize pruning¶
To understand the custom options, we first explain how the pruning process works:
All snapshots and directories within snapshots are scanned to determine which data is still in use.
For all files in the repository, restic finds out if the file is fully used, partly used or completely unused.
Completely unused files are marked for deletion. Fully used files are kept. A partially used file is either kept or marked for repacking depending on user options.
Note that for repacking, restic must download the file from the repository storage and re-upload the needed data in the repository. This can be very time-consuming for remote repositories.
After deciding what to do,
prunewill actually perform the repack, modify the index according to the changes and delete the obsolete files.
The prune command accepts the following options:
--max-unused limitallow unused data up to the specified limit within the repository. This allows restic to keep partly used files instead of repacking them.The limit can be specified in several ways:
- As an absolute size (e.g.
200M). If you want to minimize the space used by your repository, pass0to this option. - As a size relative to the total repo size (e.g.
10%). This means that after prune, at most10%of the total data stored in the repo may be unused data. If the repo after prune has as size of 500MB, then at most 50MB may be unused. - If the string
unlimitedis passed, there is no limit for partly unused files. This means that as long as some data is still used within a file stored in the repo, restic will just leave it there. Use this if you want to minimize the time and bandwidth used by thepruneoperation.
Restic tries to repack as little data as possible while still ensuring this limit for unused data.
- As an absolute size (e.g.
--max-repack-size sizeif set limits the total size of files to repack. Asprunefirst stores all repacked files and deletes the obsolete files at the end, this option might be handy if you expect many files to be repacked and fear to run low on storage.--repack-cacheable-onlyif set to true only files which contain metadata and would be stored in the cache are repacked. Other pack files are not repacked if this option is set. This allows a very fast repacking using only cached data. It can, however, imply that the unused data in your repository exceeds the value given by--max-unused. The default value is false.--dry-runonly show whatprunewould do.--verboseincreased verbosity shows additional statistics forprune.