Restic Backup Questions

brent

WetGeek I began my backups. I'm comfortable with the CLI commands and verbiage...backing up in chunks...but I thought there would be some zip to this. 'Very powerful' I read about Restic everywhere I surfed......as fast/slow as any other backup I've used. Identical to grsync for speed if I had to guess.
edit: no complaint. just an observation.

brent

Harvey I did browse at /mnt with that command. The 'binary' label is a red herring. I see the snapshot. Way cool. Thanks for the great response.

brent

Harvey Am I making an --exclude list file (.txt) or a script (sh)? And what folder should I put it in where the restic command line will see it?
I've made the list of what I want excluded and soon will do a full /home backup with this last piece of the puzzle.
(Yeah reading the man right now as well).
Thanks.

Harvey

brent

There are many ways to exclude files, but the one you are after is not --exclude but rather --exclude-file

It is a plain text file (.txt) and you can place the file anywhere you like, you just need to point the command to its location. I put it in the directory I was backing up /home/harvey/ so the exclude file itself would be backed up too so if I need to restore I do not have to recreate the file for future backups.

Note: You must list 1 file or folder to exclude per line, do not add multiple on the same line in the file. Additionally remember Linux file systems are case sensitive "Downloads" and "downloads" are not the same.

Example:
--exclude-file='/home/harvey/.backupexclude'

If you are wondering, I named it with a prefix of a . purely so it is hidden from the file manager (unless you enable show hidden files) as I never want to see the file.

brent

Harvey Note: You must list 1 file or folder to exclude per line, do not add multiple on the same line in the file. Additionally remember Linux file systems are case sensitive "Downloads" and "downloads" are not the same.

noted, thank you.

brent

restic -r /srv/restic-repo backup ~/work --exclude="*.c" --exclude-file=excludes.txt

There is a gigantic page full of using this command at the restic read the docs page....but no context for commands like this. That's why I'm bugging you.
With no explanation this command assumes restic knows where to find excludes.txt. Uness this part of command (/srv/restic-repo) is the clue for restic?

--exclude-from='/home/harvey/.backupexclude' ". I put it in the directory I was backing up"----at least in your example I can see with /home/harvey/etc that you are literally walking the command to the document. Thanks, thats what I want to be sure of. I named it like the restic people did (.excludes.txt) and will move it /home right now--plus I added your period. Good idea.

The command I used last night for my successful test copy was:
restic backup /home/brent/Downloads --verbose -r /run/media/brent/backup
(/Downloads being the test.)

To back up /home, this is what I'm coming up with:
restic backup /home/brent --verbose -r /run/media/brent/backup exclude-from'/home/brent/.excludes.txt'

look allright? apostrophe right after M in from, no space? appreciate your help very much--I'm not seeing the nuances I need to see in the paperwork. Thanks so much so far.

Harvey

brent With no explanation this command assumes restic knows where to find excludes.txt. Uness this part of command (/srv/restic-repo) is the clue for restic?

This is the restic repo (backup) location. For you I believe you said that was /mnt/backups later /run/media/brent/backup I too find their examples confusing. --exclude is yet another way to exclude files matching a patern which is not what we are doing using an exclude file.

brent restic backup /home/brent --verbose -r /run/media/brent/backup exclude-from'/home/brent/.excludes.txt'
look allright?

Nope. I made a typo --exclude-from it should have been --exclude-file and you missed the -- and the = (I'll go back and correct mine).

restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file='/home/brent/.excludes.txt' -r /run/media/brent/backup

That should work. Never used verbose but man restic-backup says:

-v, --verbose[=0] be verbose (specify multiple times or a level using --verbose=n, max level/times is 3)

So if you use verbose it should be --verbose=n where n is just how verbose you want it to be up to 3.

brent

I ran it and the first thing it did was start saving the fat .cache file which I excluded. So I guess I botched the exclude file command. Work in progress🙂

brent

still, the first thing restic digs into is.config. .config is the first entry in in .excludes.txt.
so it still doesn't see list. I see list in /home...File is named right.
the command was restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file='/home/brent/.excludes.txt' --verbose -r /run/media/brent/backup

I got rid of verbose alltogether and it still went straight for the excluded .config. this has got to be something simple I'm overlooking. I see nothing else in restic docs. Sorry to keep rousting you. Will try again later with the full backup.

Harvey

brent
Can you post the contents of your .excludes.txt?

Make sure there is no leading or trailing spaces on each line.

brent

certainly; cut and paste, as it:
.cache
.local
.nv
.pki
Templates
.vscode
.wget-hsts
snap
Public
Music
.dvdcss
.pacman_sdl
.pan2
.thunderbird
.wget-hsts

Harvey

brent

I recreated the file and dropped .txt from its name just to rule out any weirdness there and any special characters that may be in your .excludes.txt as well as making sure it really is a plain text file.

EDIT file deleted

Click the download button and save it wherever you would like. Google drive / browser will strip the leading . from the file. Be sure to point your command to the new file. You can add --dry-run to the end of the restic command and it will run through the files without actually creating the backup.

It appears to be working for me.

brent

Harvey thanks for this. will give it a dry run later in the day.

brent

sudo restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file='/home/brent/excludes' -r /run/media/brent/backup

this is the command. would not run until I removed .txt.

enter password for repository: 
repository 87e00e75 opened successfully, password is correct
open /home/brent/excludes.txt: no such file or directory

But then immediately downloads the excluded .config file again. Your clean text was accepted by restic, but it only has eyes for .config....I put .excludes.txt in the trash to be sure.
top half in nautilus shows address/route correct:

where .config is plus new excludes:

permissions on excludes:

Question: why does restic backup an excluded folder?
Answer: it doesn't know .config's folder? some minor argument I'm overlooking in --help?

the only other troubleshooting I can do is to let it go and see if it backs up all the excluded stuff...
...that would prove it does not see excludes file.

I always always get the weird ones, so sorry Harvey.

brent

this isnt pressing and I've abandoned backups the rest of the evening. no hurries/worries.

Harvey

Sorry no idea 🤷‍♂️ works for me.

brent

Harvey yeah I think you emptied the trick bag upside on that one..will experiment again. I still have Grsync🙂

Axios

brent I am by no means a restic expert never used it but was doing some surfin reading on it
and all the examples I came across your command would look like this
sudo restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file=/home/brent/excludes.txt -r /run/media/brent/backup

Just some input you know more about than I do!! (dont let me mess something up..)

brent

Axios Harvey

restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file='/home/brent/excludes' -r /run/media/brent/backup

that's my command it works now.

Axios sudo restic backup /home/brent --exclude-file=/home/brent/excludes.txt -r /run/media/brent/backup

^^ wouldn't run with the .txt extension in command. it was a good guess by harvey, and axios I've seen a lot of sites where .txt DID work, thanks for looking into it.

Also Harvey, I did not take your ext4 advice and settled for fat32. reason: W10 OS on a seperate disk for 'in case of emergencies break glass.' Permissions was a pitfall you predicted when fat32 or win involves itself with my backup. Restic demands sudo in fat format.

Lastly I figured it out. I kept bitc*ing that the giant .config file was always being copied. The big .config was NEVER written into the exclude list by me at any point....am so tired at end of night when I try to figure this stuff out....probably thinking .cache or something...COLLOSAL BRAIN FART and I'm sorry I wasted your time @Harvey since yesterday at this time.

Harvey

I just noticed you're both running the command with sudo this is not needed, backup location is to /run/media/username/* which means you have full access and you are backing up your home directory which you obviously have access to. But I don't see how that would affect the reading of the exclude-file so probably not the solution to whatever is going on here.

The only other differences with axios example is not using a ' quote for the exclude-file path. I use them in my alias so I know it works and the file name of excludes.txt which of course must match the name and path of where that file is saved.

If you are running this command from an alias and you mixed up using single quotes and double quotes the command will break early. But I would expect that would break entirely not just break exclude-file.

To explain what I mean about mixing up quotes. In normal English (I think US is different) quotes are double quotes " quotes within quotes are singular '. In computing it tends to accept either one but you must be careful to alternate correctly. So if in the alias you had used double or singular quotes everywhere or do not use them correctly in the alias it will break, but it should break entirely based on the commands syntax not just ignore exclude-file so I don't think that is the answer either.

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