Restic Backups | Documentation

Documentation

Getting started

Autorestic

Installation

Please follow the instructions here. Autorestic supports Linux and MacOS only (no Windows).

Setup (Mac and Linux)

Create a configuration file

Create a sample configuration file named .autorestic.yml in your home folder.

In the following sample configuration file, text in square brackets [] should be substituted with the correct values:

Parameter	Explanation
[local-username]	Your local username or home folder name
[server-url]	Please check your account page. Do NOT add “rest:” at the beginning!
[username]	this is the account username you use to login on our website
[password]	this is the account password you use to login on our website
[encryptionkey]	this is the encryption password used to encrypt your repository. You can pick anything you like, but make sure to carefully store it somewhere as we do not have access to it!

We do not store your Restic password (encryption key) and do not have access to it. If you lose this key after initializing the repository (next step), we cannot help you get access to your data.

The below sample configuration file backs up your entire home directory, excluding the Library folder.

version: 2
locations:
  home:
    from:
      - '/Users/[local username]'
    to:
      - 'resticbackups'
    options:
      all:
        --verbose: 1
      backup:
        exclude:
          - '/Users/[local username]/Library'

backends:
  resticbackups:
    type: rest
    path: https://[server-url]/[username]
    key: [encryptionkey]
    rest:
      user: [username]
      password: [password]

Here is what the sample configuration file might look like with all parameters filled in:

version: 2
locations:
  home:
    from:
      - '/Users/John'
    to:
      - 'resticbackups'
    options:
      all:
        --verbose: 1
      backup:
        exclude:
          - '/Users/John/Library'

backends:
  resticbackups:
    type: rest
    path: https://heron.resticbackups.com/johnsmith
    key: 5411d088cfa6c69872ec9da34ff192d22be23bf7
    rest:
      user: johnsmith
      password: myaccountpassword

Initialize the repository

autorestic check

Run a backup

autorestic backup -a

Configuration

For full details on all the configuration parameters you can use, read Autorestic’s full documentation here.

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