Manual
Usage help
Usage help is available:
$ restic --help
restic is a backup program which allows saving multiple revisions of files and
directories in an encrypted repository stored on different backends.
The full documentation can be found at https://restic.readthedocs.io/ .
Usage:
restic [command]
Available Commands:
backup Create a new backup of files and/or directories
cache Operate on local cache directories
cat Print internal objects to stdout
check Check the repository for errors
copy Copy snapshots from one repository to another
diff Show differences between two snapshots
dump Print a backed-up file to stdout
find Find a file, a directory or restic IDs
forget Remove snapshots from the repository
init Initialize a new repository
key Manage keys (passwords)
list List objects in the repository
ls List files in a snapshot
migrate Apply migrations
mount Mount the repository
prune Remove unneeded data from the repository
recover Recover data from the repository not referenced by snapshots
repair Repair the repository
restore Extract the data from a snapshot
rewrite Rewrite snapshots to exclude unwanted files
snapshots List all snapshots
stats Scan the repository and show basic statistics
tag Modify tags on snapshots
unlock Remove locks other processes created
Advanced Options:
features Print list of feature flags
options Print list of extended options
Additional Commands:
generate Generate manual pages and auto-completion files (bash, fish, zsh, powershell)
help Help about any command
self-update Update the restic binary
version Print version information
Flags:
--cacert file file to load root certificates from (default: use system certificates or $RESTIC_CACERT)
--cache-dir directory set the cache directory. (default: use system default cache directory)
--cleanup-cache auto remove old cache directories
--compression mode compression mode (only available for repository format version 2), one of (auto|off|max) (default: $RESTIC_COMPRESSION) (default auto)
-h, --help help for restic
--http-user-agent string set a http user agent for outgoing http requests
--insecure-no-password use an empty password for the repository, must be passed to every restic command (insecure)
--insecure-tls skip TLS certificate verification when connecting to the repository (insecure)
--json set output mode to JSON for commands that support it
--key-hint key key ID of key to try decrypting first (default: $RESTIC_KEY_HINT)
--limit-download rate limits downloads to a maximum rate in KiB/s. (default: unlimited)
--limit-upload rate limits uploads to a maximum rate in KiB/s. (default: unlimited)
--no-cache do not use a local cache
--no-extra-verify skip additional verification of data before upload (see documentation)
--no-lock do not lock the repository, this allows some operations on read-only repositories
-o, --option key=value set extended option (key=value, can be specified multiple times)
--pack-size size set target pack size in MiB, created pack files may be larger (default: $RESTIC_PACK_SIZE)
--password-command command shell command to obtain the repository password from (default: $RESTIC_PASSWORD_COMMAND)
-p, --password-file file file to read the repository password from (default: $RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE)
-q, --quiet do not output comprehensive progress report
-r, --repo repository repository to backup to or restore from (default: $RESTIC_REPOSITORY)
--repository-file file file to read the repository location from (default: $RESTIC_REPOSITORY_FILE)
--retry-lock duration retry to lock the repository if it is already locked, takes a value like 5m or 2h (default: no retries)
--tls-client-cert file path to a file containing PEM encoded TLS client certificate and private key (default: $RESTIC_TLS_CLIENT_CERT)
-v, --verbose be verbose (specify multiple times or a level using --verbose=n, max level/times is 2)
Use "restic [command] --help" for more information about a command.
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
The "backup" command creates a new snapshot and saves the files and directories
given as the arguments.
EXIT STATUS
===========
Exit status is 0 if the command was successful.
Exit status is 1 if there was a fatal error (no snapshot created).
Exit status is 3 if some source data could not be read (incomplete snapshot created).
Usage:
restic backup [flags] [FILE/DIR] ...
Flags:
-n, --dry-run do not upload or write any data, just show what would be done
-e, --exclude pattern exclude a pattern (can be specified multiple times)
--exclude-caches excludes cache directories that are marked with a CACHEDIR.TAG file. See https://bford.info/cachedir/ for the Cache Directory Tagging Standard
--exclude-file file read exclude patterns from a file (can be specified multiple times)
--exclude-if-present filename[:header] takes filename[:header], exclude contents of directories containing filename (except filename itself) if header of that file is as provided (can be specified multiple times)
--exclude-larger-than size max size of the files to be backed up (allowed suffixes: k/K, m/M, g/G, t/T)
--files-from file read the files to backup from file (can be combined with file args; can be specified multiple times)
--files-from-raw file read the files to backup from file (can be combined with file args; can be specified multiple times)
--files-from-verbatim file read the files to backup from file (can be combined with file args; can be specified multiple times)
-f, --force force re-reading the source files/directories (overrides the "parent" flag)
-g, --group-by group group snapshots by host, paths and/or tags, separated by comma (disable grouping with '') (default host,paths)
-h, --help help for backup
-H, --host hostname set the hostname for the snapshot manually (default: $RESTIC_HOST). To prevent an expensive rescan use the "parent" flag
--iexclude pattern same as --exclude pattern but ignores the casing of filenames
--iexclude-file file same as --exclude-file but ignores casing of filenames in patterns
--ignore-ctime ignore ctime changes when checking for modified files
--ignore-inode ignore inode number and ctime changes when checking for modified files
--no-scan do not run scanner to estimate size of backup
-x, --one-file-system exclude other file systems, don't cross filesystem boundaries and subvolumes
--parent snapshot use this parent snapshot (default: latest snapshot in the group determined by --group-by and not newer than the timestamp determined by --time)
--read-concurrency n read n files concurrently (default: $RESTIC_READ_CONCURRENCY or 2)
--skip-if-unchanged skip snapshot creation if identical to parent snapshot
--stdin read backup from stdin
--stdin-filename filename filename to use when reading from stdin (default "stdin")
--stdin-from-command interpret arguments as command to execute and store its stdout
--tag tags add tags for the new snapshot in the format `tag[,tag,...]` (can be specified multiple times) (default [])
--time time time of the backup (ex. '2012-11-01 22:08:41') (default: now)
--use-fs-snapshot use filesystem snapshot where possible (currently only Windows VSS)
--with-atime store the atime for all files and directories
Global Flags:
--cacert file file to load root certificates from (default: use system certificates or $RESTIC_CACERT)
--cache-dir directory set the cache directory. (default: use system default cache directory)
--cleanup-cache auto remove old cache directories
--compression mode compression mode (only available for repository format version 2), one of (auto|off|max) (default: $RESTIC_COMPRESSION) (default auto)
--http-user-agent string set a http user agent for outgoing http requests
--insecure-no-password use an empty password for the repository, must be passed to every restic command (insecure)
--insecure-tls skip TLS certificate verification when connecting to the repository (insecure)
--json set output mode to JSON for commands that support it
--key-hint key key ID of key to try decrypting first (default: $RESTIC_KEY_HINT)
--limit-download rate limits downloads to a maximum rate in KiB/s. (default: unlimited)
--limit-upload rate limits uploads to a maximum rate in KiB/s. (default: unlimited)
--no-cache do not use a local cache
--no-extra-verify skip additional verification of data before upload (see documentation)
--no-lock do not lock the repository, this allows some operations on read-only repositories
-o, --option key=value set extended option (key=value, can be specified multiple times)
--pack-size size set target pack size in MiB, created pack files may be larger (default: $RESTIC_PACK_SIZE)
--password-command command shell command to obtain the repository password from (default: $RESTIC_PASSWORD_COMMAND)
-p, --password-file file file to read the repository password from (default: $RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE)
-q, --quiet do not output comprehensive progress report
-r, --repo repository repository to backup to or restore from (default: $RESTIC_REPOSITORY)
--repository-file file file to read the repository location from (default: $RESTIC_REPOSITORY_FILE)
--retry-lock duration retry to lock the repository if it is already locked, takes a value like 5m or 2h (default: no retries)
--tls-client-cert file path to a file containing PEM encoded TLS client certificate and private key (default: $RESTIC_TLS_CLIENT_CERT)
-v, --verbose be verbose (specify multiple times or a level using --verbose=n, max level/times is 2)
Subcommands that support showing progress information such as backup
,
restore
, check
and prune
will do so unless the quiet flag -q
or --quiet
is set. When running from a non-interactive console progress
reporting is disabled by default to not fill your logs. For interactive and
non-interactive consoles the environment variable RESTIC_PROGRESS_FPS
can
be used to control the frequency of progress reporting. Use for example
0.016666
to only update the progress once per minute.
Additionally, on Unix systems if restic
receives a SIGUSR1 signal the
current progress will be written to the standard output so you can check up
on the status at will.
Setting the RESTIC_PROGRESS_FPS environment variable or sending a SIGUSR1 signal prints a status report even when –quiet was specified.
Under the hood
Browse repository objects
Internally, a repository stores data of several different types
described in the design
documentation.
You can list
objects such as blobs, packs, index, snapshots, keys or
locks with the following command:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo list snapshots
d369ccc7d126594950bf74f0a348d5d98d9e99f3215082eb69bf02dc9b3e464c
The find
command searches for a given
pattern 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 their raw content.
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo 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
}
Metadata handling
Restic saves and restores most default attributes, including extended attributes like ACLs. Information about holes in a sparse file is not stored explicitly, that is during a backup the zero bytes in a hole are deduplicated and compressed like any other data backed up. Instead, the restore command optionally creates holes in files by detecting and replacing long runs of zeros, in filesystems that support sparse files.
The following metadata is handled by restic:
Name
Type
Mode
ModTime
AccessTime
ChangeTime
UID
GID
User
Group
Inode
Size
Links
LinkTarget
Device
Content
Subtree
ExtendedAttributes
Getting information about repository data
Use the stats
command to count up stats about the data in the repository.
There are different counting modes available using the --mode
flag,
depending on what you want to calculate. The default is the restore size, or
the size required to restore the files:
restore-size
(default) counts the size of the restored files.files-by-contents
counts the total size of unique files as given by their contents. This can be useful since a file is considered unique only if it has unique contents. Keep in mind that a small change to a large file (even when the file name/path hasn’t changed) will cause them to look like different files, thus essentially causing the whole size of the file to be counted twice.raw-data
counts the size of the blobs in the repository, regardless of how many files reference them. This tells you how much restic has reduced all your original data down to (either for a single snapshot or across all your backups), and compared to the size given by the restore-size mode, can tell you how much deduplication is helping you.blobs-per-file
is kind of a mix between files-by-contents and raw-data modes; it is useful for knowing how much value your backup is providing you in terms of unique data stored by file. Like files-by-contents, it is resilient to file renames/moves. Unlike files-by-contents, it does not balloon to high values when large files have small edits, as long as the file path stayed the same. Unlike raw-data, this mode DOES consider how many files point to each blob such that the more files a blob is referenced by, the more it counts toward the size.
For example, to calculate how much space would be required to restore the latest snapshot (from any host that made it):
$ restic stats latest
Total File Count: 10538
Total Size: 37.824 GiB
If multiple hosts are backing up to the repository, the latest snapshot may not
be the one you want. You can specify the latest snapshot from only a specific
host by using the --host
flag:
$ restic stats --host myserver latest
Total File Count: 21766
Total Size: 481.783 GiB
There we see that it would take 482 GiB of disk space to restore the latest snapshot from “myserver”.
In case you have multiple backups running from the same host so can also use
--tag
and --path
to be more specific about which snapshots you
are looking for.
But how much space does that snapshot take on disk? In other words, how much has restic’s deduplication helped? We can check:
$ restic stats --host myserver --mode raw-data latest
Total Blob Count: 340847
Total Size: 458.663 GiB
Comparing this size to the previous command, we see that restic has saved about 23 GiB of space with deduplication.
Which mode you use depends on your exact use case. Some modes are more useful across all snapshots, while others make more sense on just a single snapshot, depending on what you’re trying to calculate.
Scripting
Restic supports the output of some commands in JSON format, the JSON
data can then be processed by other programs (e.g.
jq). The following example
lists all snapshots as JSON and uses jq
to pretty-print the result:
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo snapshots --json | jq .
[
{
"time": "2017-03-11T09:57:43.26630619+01:00",
"tree": "bf25241679533df554fc0fd0ae6dbb9dcf1859a13f2bc9dd4543c354eff6c464",
"paths": [
"/home/work/doc"
],
"hostname": "kasimir",
"username": "fd0",
"uid": 1000,
"gid": 100,
"id": "bbeed6d28159aa384d1ccc6fa0b540644b1b9599b162d2972acda86b1b80f89e"
},
{
"time": "2017-03-11T09:58:57.541446938+01:00",
"tree": "7f8c95d3420baaac28dc51609796ae0e0ecfb4862b609a9f38ffaf7ae2d758da",
"paths": [
"/home/user/shared"
],
"hostname": "kasimir",
"username": "fd0",
"uid": 1000,
"gid": 100,
"id": "b157d91c16f0ba56801ece3a708dfc53791fe2a97e827090d6ed9a69a6ebdca0"
}
]
Temporary files
During some operations (e.g. backup
and prune
) restic uses
temporary files to store data. These files will, by default, be saved to
the system’s temporary directory, on Linux this is usually located in
/tmp/
. To specify a different directory for temporary files, set
the appropriate environment variable. On non-Windows operating systems,
use the TMPDIR
environment variable. On Windows, use either the
TMP
or TEMP
environment variable. For example, to use the
directory /var/tmp/restic-tmp
instead of the default, set the
environment variable as follows:
$ export TMPDIR=/var/tmp/restic-tmp
$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo backup ~/work
Caching
Restic keeps a cache with some files from the repository on the local machine. This allows faster operations, since meta data does not need to be loaded from a remote repository. The cache is automatically created, usually in an OS-specific cache folder:
Linux/other:
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/restic
, or~/.cache/restic
ifXDG_CACHE_HOME
is not setmacOS:
~/Library/Caches/restic
Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%/restic
If the relevant environment variables are not set, restic exits with an error message.
The command line parameter --cache-dir
or the environment variable
$RESTIC_CACHE_DIR
can be used to override the default cache location. The
parameter --no-cache
disables the cache entirely. In this case, all data
is loaded from the repository.
If a cache location is explicitly specified, then the check
command will use
that location to store its temporary cache. See Checking integrity and consistency for
more details.
The cache is ephemeral: When a file cannot be read from the cache, it is loaded from the repository.
Within the cache directory, there’s a sub directory for each repository the
cache was used with. Restic updates the timestamps of a repository directory each
time it is used, so by looking at the timestamps of the sub directories of the
cache directory it can decide which sub directories are old and probably not
needed any more. You can either remove these directories manually, or run a
restic command with the --cleanup-cache
flag.