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Restic & Autorestic Backup Management Guide

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for managing backups stored in Backblaze B2 using Restic and Autorestic. It covers how to check snapshots, delete snapshots, prune old backups, and other useful commands.

1. Checking Existing Snapshots

To list all snapshots stored in your Backblaze B2 repository, run:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups snapshots

Example Output:

ID        Time                 Host        Tags                                 Paths                                                  Size
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80d2af5c  2025-03-11 12:44:05  mac-omen    ar:location:ansible_semaphore-mysql  /var/lib/docker/volumes/ansible_semaphore-mysql/_data  213.160 MiB
b7ca284a  2025-03-11 12:47:44  mac-omen    ar:location:ansible_semaphore-mysql  /var/lib/docker/volumes/ansible_semaphore-mysql/_data  213.160 MiB

📌 Key Information:

  • ID is the unique snapshot identifier.
  • Time is when the snapshot was taken.
  • Paths show the data stored in the snapshot.

To check snapshots for a specific volume:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups snapshots --path /var/lib/docker/volumes/ansible_semaphore-mysql/_data

2. Deleting Snapshots

To delete a specific snapshot, use its ID:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups forget 80d2af5c

To delete multiple snapshots:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups forget b7ca284a 80d2af5c

📌 Note: This removes the snapshot reference but does not free space immediately.

3. Pruning Old Backups to Free Space

After deleting snapshots, run:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups prune

📌 This permanently removes unreferenced data, freeing storage space in Backblaze B2.

To check available space after pruning:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups stats

 

5. Restoring Snapshots

To restore data from a snapshot:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups restore 80d2af5c --target /restore/path

If the volume was deleted, recreate it first:

docker volume create ansible_semaphore-mysql

Then restore:

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups restore 80d2af5c --target /var/lib/docker/volumes/ansible_semaphore-mysql/_data

6. Additional Useful Commands

Check Repository Integrity

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups check

Verify Snapshot Integrity

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups check --read-data

List Backup Statistics

restic -r b2:Macslodge:/docker-backups stats

Manually Run Backup

autorestic backup -a

 

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