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resticprofile

Configuration profiles manager for restic backup

resticprofile is the missing link between a configuration file and restic backup. Creating a configuration file for restic has been discussed before, but seems to be a very low priority right now.

The configuration file is TOML format:

You no longer need to remember command parameters and environment variables
You can create multiple profiles inside a configuration file
A profile can inherit the options from another profile
You can run the forget command before or after a backup (in a section called retention)
You can check a repository before or after a backup
You can create groups of profiles that will run sequentially
You can run shell commands before or after a backup
Allows to start the restic process using nice (not available on Windows) and/or ionice (only available on Linux)

Requirements

resticprofile needs python >=3.5 installed on your machine.

It's been actively tested on macOS X and Linux, and regularly tested on Windows.

This is at beta stage. Please don't use it in production yet. Even though I'm using it on my servers, I cannot guarantee all combinations of configuration are going to work properly for you.

Install

resticprofile is published on Python Package Index. The easiest way to install resticprofile is using pip:

python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade resticprofile

Configuration format

A configuration is a set of profiles.
Each profile is in its own [section].
Inside each profile, you can specify different flags for each command.
A command definition is [section.command].

All the restic flags can be defined in a section. For most of them you just need to remove the two dashes in front.

To set the flag --password-file password.txt you need to add a line like

password-file = "password.txt"

There's one exception: the flag --repo is named repository in the configuration

Let's say you normally use this command:

restic --repo "local:/backup" --password-file "password.txt" --verbose backup /home

For resticprofile to generate this command automatically for you, here's the configuration file:

[default]
repository = "local:/backup"
password-file = "password.txt"

[default.backup]
verbose = true
source = [ "/home" ]

You may have noticed the source flag is accepting an array of values (inside brakets)

Now, assuming this configuration file is named profiles.conf in the current folder, you can simply run

resticprofile backup

Configuration examples

Here's a simple configuration file using a Microsoft Azure backend:

[default]
repository = "azure:restic:/"
password-file = "key"

[default.env]
AZURE_ACCOUNT_NAME = "my_storage_account"
AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY = "my_super_secret_key"

[default.backup]
exclude-file = "excludes"
exclude-caches = true
one-file-system = true
tag = [ "root" ]
source = [ "/", "/var" ]

Here's a more complex configuration file showing profile inheritance and two backup profiles using the same repository:

[global]
# ionice is available on Linux only
ionice = false
ionice-class = 2
ionice-level = 6
# nice is available on all unixes (macOs X included)
nice = 10
# run 'snapshots' when no command is specified when invoking resticprofile
default-command = "snapshots"
# initialize a repository if none exist at location
initialize = false

# a group is a profile that will call all profiles one by one
[groups]
# when starting a backup on profile "full-backup", it will run the "root" and "src" backup profiles
full-backup = [ "root", "src" ]

# Default profile when not specified (-n or --name)
# Please note there's no default inheritance from the 'default' profile (you can use the 'inherit' flag if needed)
[default]
repository = "/backup"
password-file = "key"
initialize = false

[default.env]
TMPDIR= "/tmp"

[no-cache]
inherit = "default"
no-cache = true
initialize = false

# New profile named 'root'
[root]
inherit = "default"
initialize = true

# 'backup' command of profile 'root'
[root.backup]
exclude-file = [ "root-excludes", "excludes" ]
exclude-caches = true
one-file-system = false
tag = [ "test", "dev" ]
source = [ "." ]

# retention policy for profile root
[root.retention]
before-backup = false
after-backup = true
keep-last = 3
keep-hourly = 1
keep-daily = 1
keep-weekly = 1
keep-monthly = 1
keep-yearly = 1
keep-within = "3h"
keep-tag = [ "forever" ]
compact = false
prune = false
# if path is NOT specified, it will be copied from the 'backup' source
# path = []
# the tags are NOT copied from the 'backup' command
tag = [ "test", "dev" ]
# host can be a boolean ('true' meaning current hostname) or a string to specify a different hostname
host = true

# New profile named 'src'
[src]
inherit = "default"
initialize = true

# 'backup' command of profile 'src'
[src.backup]
run-before = [ "echo Starting!", "ls -al ./src" ]
run-after = "echo All Done!"
exclude = [ '/**/.git' ]
exclude-caches = true
one-file-system = false
tag = [ "test", "dev" ]
source = [ "./src" ]
check-before = true

# retention policy for profile src
[src.retention]
before-backup = false
after-backup = true
keep-within = "30d"
compact = false
prune = true

And another simple example for Windows:

[global]
restic-binary = "c:\\ProgramData\\chocolatey\\bin\\restic.exe"

# Default profile when not specified (-n or --name)
# Please note there's no default inheritance from the 'default' profile (you can use the 'inherit' flag if needed)
[default]
repository = "local:r:/"
password-file = "key"
initialize = false

# New profile named 'test'
[test]
inherit = "default"
initialize = true

# 'backup' command of profile 'test'
[test.backup]
tag = [ "windows" ]
source = [ "c:\\" ]
check-after = true
run-before = "dir /l"
run-after = "echo All Done!"

Simple example sending a file via stdin

[stdin]
repository = "local:/backup/restic"
password-file = "key"

[stdin.backup]
stdin = true
stdin-filename = "stdin-test"
tag = [ 'stdin' ]

Using resticprofile

Here are a few examples how to run resticprofile (using the main example configuration file)

See all snapshots (assuming your default python is python3):

python -m resticprofile

Or if the folder ~/.local/bin/ is in your PATH, simply

resticprofile

Backup root & src profiles (using full-backup group shown earlier)

python -m resticprofile --name "full-backup" backup

Assuming the stdin profile from the configuration file shown before, the command to send a mysqldump to the backup is as simple as:

mysqldump --all-databases | python3 -m resticprofile -n stdin backup

Mount the default profile (default) in /mnt/restic:

python -m resticprofile mount /mnt/restic

Display quick help

python -m resticprofile --help

Usage:
 resticprofile
   [--no-ansi]
   [-c|--config <configuration_file>]
   [-h|--help]
   [-n|--name <profile_name>]
   [-q|--quiet]
   [-v|--verbose]
   [restic command] [additional parameters to pass to restic]

Command line reference

There are not many options on the command line, most of the options are in the configuration file.

[-h]: Display quick help
[-c | --config] configuration_file: Specify a configuration file other than the default
[-n | --name] profile_name: Profile section to use from the configuration file
[-q | --quiet]: Force resticprofile and restic to be quiet (override any configuration from the profile)
[-v | --verbose]: Force resticprofile and restic to be verbose (override any configuration from the profile)
[--no-ansi]: Disable console colouring (to save output into a log file)
[restic command]: Like snapshots, backup, check, prune, forget, mount, etc.
[additional flags]: Any additional flags to pass to the restic command line

Configuration file reference

[global]

None of these flags are passed on the restic command line

ionice: true / false
ionice-class: integer
ionice-level: integer
nice: true / false OR integer
default-command: string
initialize: true / false
restic-binary: string

[profile]

Flags used by resticprofile only

inherit: string
initialize: true / false