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Backup with Restic on Object Storage (S3)

Introduction​

Restic is a fast, secure, and efficient backup tool, compatible with many backends, including S3-type services. This tutorial guides you step by step through setting up backups to an S3-compatible Object Storage (such as AWS S3, MinIO, Wasabi, etc.).

Prerequisites​

  • An existing S3 bucket
  • Access credentials (Access Key and Secret Key)
  • The region name (for AWS)
  • The S3 endpoint URL (in the case of a non-AWS provider)
  • Restic installed on your machine

Restic Installation​

Debian/Ubuntu​

sudo apt update
sudo apt install restic

macOS (via Homebrew)​

brew install restic

Windows​

Download the binary from: https://github.com/restic/restic/releases

Environment Variables Configuration​

Before using Restic with S3, you need to configure the following variables:

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="your_access_key"
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="your_secret_key"
export RESTIC_PASSWORD="your_password"

For a custom S3 endpoint (non-AWS), also add:

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY="s3:https://endpoint.custom:port/bucket_name"

Example:

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY="s3:https://s3.mycompany.local:9000/backup"

Initialize the Restic repository​

Once, initialize the repository in the bucket:

restic init

Make a backup​

To back up a directory:

restic backup /path/to/my_directory

List backups​

restic snapshots

Restore a backup​

Restore the latest backup:

restic restore latest --target /path/restore

Remove old backups​

For example, keep the last 7 snapshots:

restic forget --keep-last 7 --prune

Integrity Check​

To verify that everything is in order:

restic check

Automate backups (cron)​

Create a cron job, for example every day at 2 a.m.:

0 2 * * * /usr/bin/restic backup /home/user/dossier >> /var/log/restic.log 2>&1

Make sure all environment variables are exported in a file loaded by cron (e.g., /etc/restic.env).

Going Further​

This tutorial provides you with a solid foundation to integrate Restic into a reliable, encrypted backup strategy compatible with modern storage solutions such as S3.