Working with repositories¶
Listing all snapshots¶
Now, you can list all the snapshots stored in the repository:
$ 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
You can filter the listing by directory path:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --path="/srv"
enter password for repository:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
590c8fc8 2015-05-08 21:47:38 kazik /srv
9f0bc19e 2015-05-08 21:46:11 luigi /srv
Or filter by host:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --host luigi
enter password for repository:
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
bdbd3439 2015-05-08 21:45:17 luigi /home/art
9f0bc19e 2015-05-08 21:46:11 luigi /srv
Combining filters is also possible.
Furthermore you can group the output by the same filters (host, paths, tags):
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --group-by host
enter password for repository:
snapshots for (host [kasimir])
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
2 snapshots
snapshots for (host [luigi])
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
bdbd3439 2015-05-08 21:45:17 luigi /home/art
9f0bc19e 2015-05-08 21:46:11 luigi /srv
2 snapshots
snapshots for (host [kazik])
ID Date Host Tags Directory
----------------------------------------------------------------------
590c8fc8 2015-05-08 21:47:38 kazik /srv
1 snapshots
Copying snapshots between repositories¶
In case you want to transfer snapshots between two repositories, for
example from a local to a remote repository, you can use the copy command:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo copy --repo2 /srv/restic-repo-copy
repository d6504c63 opened successfully, password is correct
repository 3dd0878c opened successfully, password is correct
snapshot 410b18a2 of [/home/user/work] at 2020-06-09 23:15:57.305305 +0200 CEST)
copy started, this may take a while...
snapshot 7a746a07 saved
snapshot 4e5d5487 of [/home/user/work] at 2020-05-01 22:44:07.012113 +0200 CEST)
skipping snapshot 4e5d5487, was already copied to snapshot 50eb62b7
The example command copies all snapshots from the source repository
/srv/restic-repo to the destination repository /srv/restic-repo-copy.
Snapshots which have previously been copied between repositories will
be skipped by later copy runs.
Important
This process will have to both download (read) and upload (write) the entire snapshot(s) due to the different encryption keys used in the source and destination repository. This may incur higher bandwidth usage and costs than expected during normal backup runs.
Important
The copying process does not re-chunk files, which may break deduplication between the files copied and files already stored in the destination repository. This means that copied files, which existed in both the source and destination repository, may occupy up to twice their space in the destination repository. See below for how to avoid this.
The destination repository is specified with --repo2 or can be read
from a file specified via --repository-file2. Both of these options
can also set as environment variables $RESTIC_REPOSITORY2 or
$RESTIC_REPOSITORY_FILE2 respectively. For the destination repository
the password can be read from a file --password-file2 or from a command
--password-command2.
Alternatively the environment variables $RESTIC_PASSWORD_COMMAND2 and
$RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE2 can be used. It is also possible to directly
pass the password via $RESTIC_PASSWORD2. The key which should be used
for decryption can be selected by passing its ID via the flag --key-hint2
or the environment variable $RESTIC_KEY_HINT2.
Note
In case the source and destination repository use the same backend, the configuration options and environment variables used to configure the backend may apply to both repositories – for example it might not be possible to specify different accounts for the source and destination repository. You can avoid this limitation by using the rclone backend along with remotes which are configured in rclone.
Filtering snapshots to copy¶
The list of snapshots to copy can be filtered by host, path in the backup and / or a comma-separated tag list:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo copy --repo2 /srv/restic-repo-copy --host luigi --path /srv --tag foo,bar
It is also possible to explicitly specify the list of snapshots to copy, in which case only these instead of all snapshots will be copied:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo copy --repo2 /srv/restic-repo-copy 410b18a2 4e5d5487 latest
Ensuring deduplication for copied snapshots¶
Even though the copy command can transfer snapshots between arbitrary repositories, deduplication between snapshots from the source and destination repository may not work. To ensure proper deduplication, both repositories have to use the same parameters for splitting large files into smaller chunks, which requires additional setup steps. With the same parameters restic will for both repositories split identical files into identical chunks and therefore deduplication also works for snapshots copied between these repositories.
The chunker parameters are generated once when creating a new (destination) repository. That is for a copy destination repository we have to instruct restic to initialize it using the same chunker parameters as the source repository:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo-copy init --repo2 /srv/restic-repo --copy-chunker-params
Note that it is not possible to change the chunker parameters of an existing repository.
Checking 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 the files in your repository with the intention to make you restore malicious data:
$ echo "boom" > /srv/restic-repo/index/de30f3231ca2e6a59af4aa84216dfe2ef7339c549dc11b09b84000997b139628
Trying to restore a snapshot which has been modified as shown above will yield an error:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo --no-cache restore c23e491f --target /tmp/restore-work
...
Fatal: unable to load index de30f323: load <index/de30f3231c>: invalid data returned
In order to detect these things before they become a problem, it’s a
good idea to regularly use the check command to test whether your
repository is healthy and consistent, and that your precious backup
data is unharmed. There are two types of checks that can be performed:
- Structural consistency and integrity, e.g. snapshots, trees and pack files (default)
- Integrity of the actual data that you backed up (enabled with flags, see below)
To verify the structure of the repository, issue the check command.
If the repository is damaged like in the example above, check will
detect this and yield the same error as when you tried to restore:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check
...
load indexes
error: error loading index de30f323: load <index/de30f3231c>: invalid data returned
Fatal: LoadIndex returned errors
If the repository structure is intact, restic will show that no errors were found:
$ restic -r /src/restic-repo check
...
load indexes
check all packs
check snapshots, trees and blobs
no errors were found
By default, the check command does not verify that the actual pack files
on disk in the repository are unmodified, because doing so requires reading
a copy of every pack file in the repository. To tell restic to also verify the
integrity of the pack files in the repository, use the --read-data flag:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data
...
load indexes
check all packs
check snapshots, trees and blobs
read all data
[0:00] 100.00% 3 / 3 items
duration: 0:00
no errors were found
Note
Since --read-data has to download all pack files in the
repository, beware that it might incur higher bandwidth costs than usual
and also that it takes more time than the default check.
Alternatively, use the --read-data-subset parameter to check only a subset
of the repository pack files at a time. It supports three ways to select a
subset. One selects a specific part of pack files, the second and third
selects a random subset of the pack files by the given percentage or size.
Use --read-data-subset=n/t to check a specific part of the repository pack
files at a time. The parameter takes two values, n and t. When the check
command runs, all pack files in the repository are logically divided in t
(roughly equal) groups, and only files that belong to group number n are
checked. For example, the following commands check all repository pack files
over 5 separate invocations:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=1/5
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=2/5
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=3/5
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=4/5
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=5/5
Use --read-data-subset=x% to check a randomly choosen subset of the
repository pack files. It takes one parameter, x, the percentage of
pack files to check as an integer or floating point number. This will not
guarantee to cover all available pack files after sufficient runs, but it is
easy to automate checking a small subset of data after each backup. For a
floating point value the following command may be used:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=2.5%
When checking bigger subsets you most likely want to specify the percentage as an integer:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=10%
Use --read-data-subset=nS to check a randomly chosen subset of the
repository pack files. It takes one parameter, nS, where ‘n’ is a whole
number representing file size and ‘S’ is the unit of file size (K/M/G/T) of
pack files to check. Behind the scenes, the specified size will be converted
to percentage of the total repository size. The behaviour of the check command
following this conversion will be the same as the percentage option above. For
a file size value the following command may be used:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=50M
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data-subset=10G