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

Checking a repo’s 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:

$ 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 /srv/restic-repo 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 /srv/restic-repo restore 79766175 --target /tmp/restore-work
Load indexes
ciphertext verification failed

By default, check command does not check that repository data files are unmodified. Use --read-data parameter to check all repository data files:

$ restic -r /srv/restic-repo check --read-data
load indexes
check all packs
check snapshots, trees and blobs
read all data

Use the --read-data-subset=n/t parameter to check only a subset of the repository data files at a time. The parameter takes two values, n and t. When the check command runs, all data files in the repository are logically divided in t (roughly equal) groups, and only files that belong to the group number n are checked. For example, the following commands check all repository data 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