CLI to restore everything that was ever checked into a Restic repo.
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demo.mp4
THIS IS NOT A LOST DATA RECOVERY PROGRAM! It can not restore files from restic that restic has forgotten or purged!
Restic Restore Everything is a Command-Line Interface tool designed to restore every file that has ever been checked into a Restic repository - and that is remembered. This is useful for repos that are used as a fire-and-forget repositories; i.e. repositories that periodically receive files which are then removed from the source immediately after completed backup as a means to save space on the source side.
More concrete example: Let's say I have a server that has about 1 TB of disk space available. After some time, the avaialble disk space runs out. So I set up an external storage bucket over at AWS or Backblaze in which I init a new restic repository. I'll then setup a script on my server that periodically backs up files to this bucket repo that are no longer needed (like old documents, images, etc). After the backup completes, the files are deleted from the server to free up space, but live on long-term in the bucket repository.
Restic - as of August 2024 - does not offer an easy to use way of restoring all data that is stored this way. Yes, it is a very specific usecase, but from what I could find in the forums, it is not unique to me.
This script can only restore files that restic remembers. It CAN NOT magically restore purged or forgotten data.
Before you begin using Restic Restore Everything, you will need:
- Restic (v0.16 or newer) installed on your machine (on Fedora:
sudo dnf install restic) - dotnet 8 runtime (on Fedora:
sudo dnf install dotnet-runtime-8.0) - Access to the restic repository you wish to restore from
- Sufficient storage space for the restored files
- Goto release page and download the latest release
- Extract the
rrevdirectory to a directory of your choice (make sure the dlls and other files are also in same directory) - Give it exec permissions (e.g.
chmod 700 rrev) - Run the program (e.g. ./rrev --help)
You can view all options by providing the --help option.
- First, you'll have to generate a findings file. That file contains every file that your restic repository remembers. You can create the file by using the following command:
restic -r YOUR_REPO_URL find "*" > findingsThis will generate a file named findings.
- Now you can go ahead and run the restic restore everything app:
⚠️ Only latest versions are restored: This app will only restore the newest version of a file! This means, if you have backed up a file called "Test", deleted this file and later added another file also called "Test" in the same location, this app will only restore the last "Test" file.⚠️ Check available disk space: Please check if the available disk space is sufficient to restore the entire repo first!
./rrev -r YOUR_REPO_URL -s REPOSITORY_PASSWORD -t DIRECTORY_WHERE_RESTORED_FILES_GO_TO -f PATH_TO_FINDINGS_FILEThis command will attempt to restore every file in the findings file to the target directory.
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Wait for the program to finish. Keep an eye on the log output in case it failed to restore some files.
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All done!
Some things I'd like to implement if I find the time for it:
- Integrated
findingsfile generation: Currently, you have to generate the findings file yourself. This isn't a lot of work by any means but it would still be nice to have this step integrated. - Dry-run option: For big repos it would be helpful to see what actions would be run without actually committing to them. According to the Restic docs, it offers a dry-run option for the restore action, but the version I've used during development apparently didn't? Might look into this again.
- GUI: I'd like to add some kind of simple GUI for a more streamlined restore process. It would also make the app easier to use for the non-technical folks out there (one might wonder tho how they got a restic repo in the first place).