130 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
# Automatic restic backups using systemd services and timers
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## Restic
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[restic](https://restic.net/) is a command-line tool for making backups, the right way. Check the official website for a feature explanation. As a storage backend, I recommend [Backblaze B2](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html) as restic works well with it, and it is (at the time of writing) very affordable for the hobbyist hacker!
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Unfortunately restic does not come pre-configured with a way to run automated backups, say every day. However it's possible to set this up yourself using systemd/cron and some wrappers. This example also features email notifications when a backup fails to complete.
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Here follows a step-by step tutorial on how to set it up, with my sample script and configurations that you can modify to suit your needs.
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Note, you can use any of the supported [storage backends](https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/030_preparing_a_new_repo.html). The setup should be similar but you will have to use other configuration variables to match your backend of choice.
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## Set up
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Tip: The steps in this section will instruct you to copy files from this repo to system directories. If you don't want to do this manually, you can use the Makefile:
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```bash
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$ git clone https://github.com/erikw/restic-systemd-automatic-backup.git
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$ cd restic-systemd-automatic-backup
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$ sudo make install
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````
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### 1. Create Backblaze B2 account
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First, see this official Backblaze [tutorial](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002880514-How-to-configure-Backblaze-B2-with-Restic-on-Linux) on restic, and follow the instructions ("Create Backblaze account with B2 enabled") there on how to create a new B2 bucket.
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Take note of the your account ID, application key and password for the next steps.
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### 2. Configure your B2 account locally
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Put these files in `/etc/restic/`:
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* `b2_env.sh`: Fill this file out with your B2 bucket settings etc. The reason for putting these in a separate file is that it can be used also for you to simply source, when you want to issue some restic commands. For example:
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```bash
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$ source /etc/restic/b2_env.sh
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$ restic snapshots # You don't have to supply all parameters like --repo, as they are now in your environment!
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````
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* `b2_pw.txt`: Put your B2 password in this file.
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### 3. Initialize remote repo
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Now we must initialize the repository on the remote end:
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```bash
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source /etc/restic/b2_env.sh
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restic init
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```
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### 4. Script for doing the backup
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Put this file in `/usr/local/sbin`:
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* `restic_backup.sh`: A script that defines how to run the backup. Edit this file to respect your needs in terms of backup which paths to backup, retention (number of backups to save), etc.
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Put this file in `/`:
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* `.backup_exclude`: A list of file pattern paths to exclude from you backups, files that just occupy storage space, backup-time, network and money.
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### 5. Make first backup & verify
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Now see if the backup itself works, by running
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```bash
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$ /usr/local/sbin/restic_backup.sh
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$ restic snapshots
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````
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### 6. Backup automatically; systemd service + timer
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Now we can do the modern version of a cron-job, a systemd service + timer, to run the backup every day!
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Put these files in `/etc/systemd/system/`:
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* `restic-backup.service`: A service that calls the backup script.
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* `restic-backup.timer`: A timer that starts the backup every day.
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Now simply enable the timer with:
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```bash
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$ systemctl start restic-backup.timer
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$ systemctl enable restic-backup.timer
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````
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You can see when your next backup is scheduled to run with
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```bash
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$ systemctl list-timers | grep restic
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```
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and see the status of a currently running backup with
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```bash
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$ systemctl status restic-backup
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```
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or start a backup manually
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```bash
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$ systemctl start restic-backup
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```
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You can follow the backup stdout output live as backup is running with:
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```bash
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$ journalctl -f -u restic-backup.service
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````
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(skip `-f` to see all backups that has run)
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### 7. Email notification on failure
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We want to be aware when the automatic backup fails, so we can fix it. Since my laptop does not run a mail server, I went for a solution to set up my laptop to be able to send emails with [postfix via my Gmail](https://easyengine.io/tutorials/linux/ubuntu-postfix-gmail-smtp/). Follow the instructions over there.
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Put this file in `/usr/local/sbin`:
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* `systemd-email`: Sends email using sendmail(1). This script also features time-out for not spamming Gmail servers and getting my account blocked.
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Put this files in `/etc/systemd/system/`:
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* `status-email-user@.service`: A service that can notify you via email when a systemd service fails. Edit the target email address in this file.
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As you maybe noticed already before, `restic-backup.service` is configured to start `status-email-user.service` on failure.
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### 8. Optional: automated backup checks
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Once in a while it can be good to do a health check of the remote repository, to make sure it's not getting corrupt. This can be done with `$ restic check`.
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There are some `*-check*`-files in this git repo. Install these in the same way you installed the `*-backup*`-files.
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## Cron?
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If you want to run an all-classic cron job instead, do like this:
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* `etc/cron.d/restic`: Depending on your system's cron, put this in `/etc/cron.d/` or similar, or copy the contents to $(sudo crontab -e). The format of this file is tested under FreeBSD, and might need adaptions depending on your cron.
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* `usr/local/sbin/cron_mail`: A wrapper for running cron jobs, that sends output of the job as an email using the mail(1) command.
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