rearden-backup

Lightweight and reliable Bash script that automates the backup of local directories and securely uploads them to a remote storage service.

This tool combines the power of restic for secure, incremental local backups with rclone for seamless remote syncing across cloud providers, SFTP, WebDAV, or even custom remote endpoints.

🔧 Features

• 📁 Backup selected local directories with restic
• ☁️ Upload backups to remote storage using rclone
• 🔒 Strong encryption with restic for secure backups
• 🔄 Easy restoration from any snapshot
• 📊 Backup statistics and verification
• 🕒 Supports scheduled (cron) execution for automated daily backups
• 📋 Comprehensive logging system with log rotation
• 🔃 Profile support for multiple backup configurations
• 🚫 Lock mechanism to prevent concurrent executions
• 🧪 Dry-run capability to preview actions
• 🧰 Minimal dependencies: only bash, restic, and rclone

💼 Use Cases

• Personal or professional workstation backups
• Offsite backups for servers or VPS
• Archiving dev environments, config files, or databases
• Multi-system backup management with profiles

Installation

1. Check out rearden-backup into any path (here is ${HOME}/.rearden-backup)

   git clone git@github.com:universal-development/rearden-backup.git ~/.rearden-backup

2. Add ~/.rearden-backup/bin to your $PATH any way you like

   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rearden-backup/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Commands

Command	Description
init	Initialize the restic repository
backup	Create a new backup
restore [path] [snapshot]	Restore from backup (defaults to latest snapshot and / path)
push	Upload entire CONFIG_DIR to remote storage
pull	Download entire CONFIG_DIR from remote storage
list	List available snapshots
stats	Show backup statistics
verify	Verify the integrity of the backup repository
export	Export backup information to a file
template	Display a template for init.sh file

Options

Option	Description
-p, --profile PROFILE	Use specific profile configuration
-d, --dry-run	Show what would be done without actually doing it
-v, --verbose	Enable basic verbosity (level 1)
-vv	Enable more detailed verbosity (level 2)
-vvv	Enable maximum verbosity (level 3)
-h, --help	Show help message

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
INIT_SCRIPT	Path to initialization script	init.sh
PROFILE	Default profile name	default
DRY_RUN	Set to 1 for dry-run mode	0
VERBOSE	Set verbosity level: 0=none, 1=basic, 2=detailed, 3=maximum	1
MAX_LOG_FILES	Maximum number of log files to keep	10
RESTIC_REPOSITORY	Optional: Use a remote repository directly instead of local+rclone

Configuration Variables (in init.sh)

Variable	Description	Required
CONFIG_DIR	Directory for all configuration and backup files	Yes
BACKUP_DIRECTORIES	Space-separated list of directories to backup	Yes
LOCAL_BACKUP_REPO	Local repository path for restic (default: ${CONFIG_DIR}/backups/${PROFILE})	No
RCLONE_REMOTE	Remote storage path for rclone	No
RETENTION_DAYS	Number of days to keep backups	No (default: 0)
VERIFY_BACKUP	Verify backup after creation (1=yes, 0=no)	No (default: 1)
RESTIC_PASSWORD	Password for restic repository	No*
RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE	Path to file containing restic password	No*
ENABLE_BACKUP	Enable/disable backup functionality	No (default: 1)
ENABLE_RESTORE	Enable/disable restore functionality	No (default: 1)
ENABLE_PUSH	Enable/disable push functionality	No (default: 1)
ENABLE_PULL	Enable/disable pull functionality	No (default: 1)

*Either RESTIC_PASSWORD or RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE must be set

Backup Repository Modes

The script supports two modes for managing the backup repository:

1. Local + Remote Sync mode (default)

   • Backups are created locally in LOCAL_BACKUP_REPO
   • The entire CONFIG_DIR (including the repository) is synced to/from remote with rclone
   • Good for frequent backups with occasional remote synchronization

2. Direct Remote Repository mode

   • Set by defining RESTIC_REPOSITORY with a remote URL (s3, sftp, rest, etc.)
   • Backup operations work directly with the remote repository
   • Push/Pull operations are disabled in this mode
   • Good for direct cloud backups without local copies

Verbosity Levels

The script supports multiple verbosity levels to control the amount of information displayed:

• Level 0: Minimal output (only basic logs)
• Level 1 (-v): Basic progress and information
• Level 2 (-vv): Detailed progress and debug information
• Level 3 (-vvv): Maximum verbosity for troubleshooting

Profiles

Multiple backup profiles can be defined to manage different backup scenarios:

1. Create a profile file at ${CONFIG_DIR}/profiles/<profile_name>.sh
2. Add specific configuration variables for that profile
3. Use the profile with -p or --profile option when running commands

Example Files

Example init.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# Basic configuration for backup script

# Required: Set the configuration directory
export CONFIG_DIR=$(pwd)/local

# Directories to backup (space-separated)
export BACKUP_DIRECTORIES="/projects /home/user/documents"

# Remote repository configuration
export RCLONE_REMOTE="remote:backup/projects-$(hostname)"

# Backup retention (days)
export RETENTION_DAYS=30

# Password file for restic repository
export RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE="${CONFIG_DIR}/restic-password.txt"

# Optional: Configure verbosity (0=none, 1=basic, 2=detailed, 3=maximum)
export VERBOSE=1

Example profile for server backups (local/profiles/server.sh):

#!/bin/bash
# Server-specific backup settings

export BACKUP_DIRECTORIES="/etc /var/www /opt/application/data"
export RETENTION_DAYS=60
export VERBOSE=1

Example local/rclone.conf file for SFTP uploads:

[remote]
type = sftp
host = example.com
user = backup-user
port = 22

Example local/rclone.conf file for Hetzner storage box:

[remote]
type = sftp
host = u123456.your-storagebox.de
user = u123456
port = 23

Example local/exclude.txt for excluding specific patterns:

# Patterns to exclude from backup
**/.DS_Store
**/node_modules
**/.git
**/*.log
**/tmp
**/temp
**/.cache

Compatibility Notes

• The script is compatible with both newer and older versions of restic
• Some advanced features (like the stats command) may not be available in older restic versions
• For best results, using restic 0.12.0 or later is recommended

License

This code is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.