Restic Backup

Systemd configuration for a backups using Restic.

These backup services are based on the ones described in Automate backups with restic and systemd in Fedora Magazine, but modified to fit my setup.

Installation

This package is available from the chrisbouchard/upliftinglemma Copr. Assuming you're using a recent version of Fedora, you can install using dnf.

$ dnf copr enable chrisbouchard/upliftinglemma
$ dnf install restic-backup

You may have to agree to some prompts if this is the first Copr you've enabled.

Usage

There are two main timers and services in this package, and a couple support services.

restic-backup.service

This service is responsible for running the backup via restic backup and for tagging backups to be deleted via restic forget. The restic-backup.timer will run this service every night at midnight.

Note: This service won't actually delete any backups. That's handled by the next service.

restic-prune.service

This service deletes the backups that were marked for delete in the previous service using restic prune. The restic-prune.timer will run this service once a month at midnight on the first of the month.

restic-mount.service

This service mounts your restic backups at the configured mount point (restic mount) so you can explore your backups using the filesystem.

restic-notify-failure@.service

This service is used by the others to report failures using notify-send.

Running

Once the configuration is done, you can enable backups with

$ systemctl --user enable --now restic-backup.timer
$ systemctl --user enable --now restic-prune.timer

Configuration

Restic Backup is configured using a systemd environment file, which by default is $XDG_CONFIG_DIR/restic-backup/restic-backup.conf

Configuration Values for restic-backup.conf

Backup Options

• BACKUP_EXCLUDE_FILES: List of exclude files, separated with colons (:). For more information about exclude files, see the restic docs.
  • Default: $XDG_CONFIG_DIR/restic-backup/exclude
• BACKUP_EXCLUDE_IF_PRESENT: List of exclude-if-present filenames, separated with colons (:). If any of these filenames are present in a directory, the directory will be ignored for backup.
  • Default: .restic_exclude
• BACKUP_PATHS: List of paths to include in the backups, separated with colons (:).
  • Default: $HOME
• BACKUP_VERBOSE: Verbosity level of the restic backup command.
  • Default: 0

Forget Options

• FORGET_DAILY: Number of daily backups to keep. See restic docs for more information.
  • Default: unset
• FORGET_MONTHLY: Number of monthly backups to keep. See restic docs for more information.
  • Default: unset
• FORGET_WEEKLY: Number of weekly backups to keep. See restic docs for more information.
  • Default: unset
• FORGET_YEARLY: Number of yearly backups to keep. See restic docs for more information.
  • Default: unset
• FORGET_VERBOSE: Verbosity level of the restic forget command.
  • Default: 0

Mount Options

• MOUNT_PATH: Mount point for restic mount.
  • Default: $HOME/Restic
• MOUNT_VERBOSE: Verbosity level of the restic prune command.
  • Default: 0

Prune Options

• PRUNE_VERBOSE: Verbosity level of the restic prune command.
  • Default: 0

Unlock Options

• UNLOCK_VERBOSE: Verbosity level of the restic unlock command.
  • Default: 0