To back up all my configs, time lapses, filament databases, etc, I've set up a package called restic to back up the contents of the /home/pi directory on my octoprint instances to cloud storage (a backblaze[*] b2 bucket in my case, but an AWS s3 bucket works just as well, or a NFS or Samba share mount, or just an external USB key that gets plugged into the octoprint instance would work as well.)
[*] Full disclosure, I work for backblaze, but this doesn't need to be backblaze specific.)
First, this guide assumes B2 bucket storage and a PI as the octoprint instance, but can be adapted to other storage backends and computers fairly easily. I'm assuming that you're comfortable with using the command line and can ssh into the octoprint instance.
Setting up Restic
You can always refer to the restic docs online, However, I'm going to link to the specific sections that deal with this setup.
The first decision is which version of restic you want to use. I've gone with the latest stable version:
pi@octopi-b1:~ $ restic version
restic 0.14.0 compiled with go1.19 on linux/arm
You could install whatever version your package manager has, but last time I tried, the version in the debian repos was very old (so old it didn't support b2), so I grabbed the linux/arm version from the binary releases page. Direct link here. You can download it directly onto the Pi by logging in and running:
$ wget https://github.com/restic/restic/releases/download/v0.14.0/restic_0.14.0_linux_arm.bz2
You now need to uncompress it
$ bzip2 -d restic_0.14.0_linux_arm.bz2
and move the resulting file someplace you can find it. I recommend /usr/local/bin
$ mv restic_0.14.0_linux_arm /usr/local/bin/restic
$ chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/restic
Now see if you can run it:
$ restic version
restic 0.14.0 compiled with go1.19 on linux/arm
If you get an error about not finding it, then you might need to add /usr/local/bin to your path:
$ echo 'export PATH="${PATH}":/usr/local/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
$ source ~/.bashrc
Configuing and initializing the repository
The first thing we need to do is configure the repository (repo) directory/location where the backups will be stored. As I said before, I followed the directions for using Backblaze B2, but you can just as easily follow the directions for S3 or some other choice.
Once you have that set up, I like to start creating a place where all the restic specific configuration will live. I put it in a hidden directory in the user's home dir: /home/pi/.restic and have a script there that will contain the environment variables (environment.sh) needed for restic to find the repo.
$ mkdir -p /home/pi/.restic
$ cat > /home/pi/.restic/environment.sh << EOF
> export B2_ACCOUNT_ID=<B2 ACCOUNT ID>
> export B2_ACCOUNT_KEY=<B2 ACCOUNT KEY>
> export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=b2:<B2 BUCKET NAME>:restic
> export RESTIC_PASSWORD_FILE=/home/pi/.restic/repo.pw
> EOF
(Substitute appropriate values of course)
You'll notice that we refer to a non-existent file repo.pw which needs to contain the password used to secure the contents of your repository. I generate mine randomly using
$ gpg -a --gen-random 0 35 > /home/pi/.restic/repo.pw
But you can create your own if you like. You'll need to back up the values for the environment variables and the password file somewhere safe, or you won't be able to restore your backups when you need to.
Now let's initialize the repository:
$ source ~/.restic/environment.sh
$ restic init
This should only take a few seconds. If it doesn't, then make sure that you've properly set up your back-end storage.
Backing up your data
Now we're ready to back up the data for the first time
$ restic backup /home/pi
This may take a little while the first time if you have a lot of stuff in your home directory, but subsequent runs will only need to copy the information that has changed, and so will typically only take a few seconds.
Check that it created a snapshot of your data like so:
$ restic snapshots
repository ccff70e1 opened (repository version 2) successfully, password is correct
ID Time Host Tags Paths
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
706f74ac 2023-01-03 18:45:01 octopi /home/pi
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1 snapshot
Congratulations, you've created a backup of your data. That weird identifier at the beginning of the line (actually a hexadecimal number), is the snapshot ID, and you can look at the individual files backed up like so:
$ restic ls 706f74ac
Automating the backups
A single point-in-time snapshot of your data isn't all that useful, so it makes sense to keep making new snapshots. As I said earlier, subsequent backups only copy the data that has changed, and as such will only take up a little more space each time. I make backups of my octoprint instances every hour, and it takes up relatively little space.
I created a script to run all the necessary commands, and then automated running that script every hour using the cron facility.
First let's create a place for the script to live:
$ mkdir -p /home/pi/bin
My script looks like this:
$ nano ~/bin/backup
#!/bin/bash
source /home/pi/.restic/environment.sh
echo Starting backup at $(date)
/usr/local/bin/restic backup /home/pi
echo Finished backup at $(date)
Now we can make the script executable
$ chmod a+rx /home/pi/bin/backup
now run it
$ /home/pi/bin/backup
pi@octopi-b1:~ $ /home/pi/bin/backup
Starting backup at Tue 3 Jan 19:45:01 PST 2023
using parent snapshot 706f74ac
Files: 2 new, 1 changed, 10843 unmodified
Dirs: 0 new, 5 changed, 2225 unmodified
Added to the repository: 47.203 KiB (9.075 KiB stored)
processed 10846 files, 1.549 GiB in 0:36
snapshot 53d9a24b saved
Finished backup at Tue 3 Jan 19:45:41 PST 2023
Now that we've got a script to do the dirty work, let's run it on a schedule. I choose to use cron, which is a very old unix/linux utility, and slightly more cryptic than most tools these days, but it's very powerful.
You schedule cron to run things using the crontab command:
$ crontab -e
that will bring up an editor (nano by default) and allow you to schedule jobs. To run the backup every hour at 45 minutes past the hour, add the following line at the bottom of the file and save it out:
45 * * * * /home/pi/bin/backup >> /tmp/restic.log 2>&1
You can monitor the file /tmp/restic.log to check to see that stuff is running properly.
Cleaning out old snapshots
After a while, you'll have lots of old snapshots that you probably don't need any more
$ restic snapshots
repository ccff70e1 opened (repository version 2) successfully, password is correct
ID Time Host Tags Paths
---------------------------------------------------------------
[....]
e2714de3 2023-01-03 15:45:01 octopi /home/pi
aeff5b40 2023-01-03 16:45:01 octopi /home/pi
5479fd84 2023-01-03 17:45:01 octopi /home/pi
706f74ac 2023-01-03 18:45:01 octopi /home/pi
53d9a24b 2023-01-03 19:45:01 octopi /home/pi
---------------------------------------------------------------
170 snapshots
Now you can delete individual snapshots like so:
$ restic forget <snapshot_id>
[...]
$ restic prune
The prune command causes restic to actually free up the space in the repository that it no longer referencing files in current snapshots. However, deleting them manually really doesn't scale well.... it's too cumbersome to delete 2 dozen snapshots every day, so instead we can give it rules about what it should keep
$ restic forget --keep-last 10 --prune
This will cause it keep only the 10 most recent snapshots, and automatically prune or recover unused space.
I use a slightly more sophisticated version like so:
$ restic forget --keep-within 1d --keep-within-daily 30d --keep-within-weekly 1y --prune
this instructs it to keep every snapshot for the last day, a daily snapshot for the last 30 days, and a weekly snapshot for the last year. The output looks something like:
repository ccff70e1 opened (repository version 2) successfully, password is correct
Applying Policy: keep daily snapshots within 30d, weekly snapshots within 1y and all snapshots within 1d of the newest
keep 55 snapshots:
ID Time Host Tags Reasons Paths
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bc301182 2022-11-27 23:45:01 octopi-b1 weekly within 1y /home/pi
d55079b7 2022-12-04 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
weekly within 1y
a2386c38 2022-12-05 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
7a69b78d 2022-12-06 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
a6d6698c 2022-12-07 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
d03754c4 2022-12-08 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
3b676494 2022-12-09 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
d777d991 2022-12-10 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
d513dada 2022-12-11 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
weekly within 1y
675287c5 2022-12-12 23:45:02 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
a8d8c748 2022-12-13 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
ebadcb11 2022-12-14 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
52ba5370 2022-12-15 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
31d9ef98 2022-12-16 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
d036be7f 2022-12-17 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
295fbaf4 2022-12-18 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
weekly within 1y
95c2acdc 2022-12-19 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
234b6c01 2022-12-20 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
fce0e694 2022-12-21 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
2bb6a4e9 2022-12-22 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
9ff4e50c 2022-12-23 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
0321d6e2 2022-12-24 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
3ef73526 2022-12-25 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
weekly within 1y
137be2ba 2022-12-26 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
ca913560 2022-12-27 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
f4c70b9d 2022-12-28 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
6fdcaddf 2022-12-29 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
5f47166d 2022-12-30 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
50a4a44c 2022-12-31 23:45:01 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
fa55d5c1 2023-01-01 23:45:02 octopi-b1 daily within 30d /home/pi
weekly within 1y
19956be3 2023-01-02 20:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
8c6e4b75 2023-01-02 21:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
f171ade4 2023-01-02 22:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
41180c0b 2023-01-02 23:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
daily within 30d
a0f5ad2f 2023-01-03 00:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
4853c815 2023-01-03 01:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
eaeb7249 2023-01-03 02:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
dd3b2e30 2023-01-03 03:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
dcd1de77 2023-01-03 04:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
34a6d6bc 2023-01-03 05:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
dd41ff98 2023-01-03 06:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
6201e9de 2023-01-03 07:45:02 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
c23418a6 2023-01-03 08:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
f4cc119f 2023-01-03 09:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
69d9b8ab 2023-01-03 10:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
04d15b40 2023-01-03 11:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
50320b5a 2023-01-03 12:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
ebd7d6ee 2023-01-03 13:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
0d853737 2023-01-03 14:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
e2714de3 2023-01-03 15:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
aeff5b40 2023-01-03 16:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
5479fd84 2023-01-03 17:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
706f74ac 2023-01-03 18:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
53d9a24b 2023-01-03 19:45:01 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
97091f7c 2023-01-03 19:45:41 octopi-b1 within 1d /home/pi
daily within 30d
weekly within 1y
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
55 snapshots
remove 116 snapshots:
ID Time Host Tags Paths
---------------------------------------------------------------
d93273eb 2022-11-30 23:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
c41753be 2022-12-01 23:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
85cad9f9 2022-12-02 23:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
329b535b 2022-12-03 23:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
f9c37f5b 2022-12-29 00:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
281e2d22 2022-12-29 01:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
939faf10 2022-12-29 02:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
dee3b939 2022-12-29 03:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
13371466 2022-12-29 04:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b6edc3aa 2022-12-29 05:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
f731d67c 2022-12-29 06:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
459bae7e 2022-12-29 07:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
2cf68f76 2022-12-29 08:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
fd83ec35 2022-12-29 09:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
5c567cb5 2022-12-29 10:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
d2bdbd4a 2022-12-29 11:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
c0b60b1f 2022-12-29 12:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
e852c82d 2022-12-29 13:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
83935235 2022-12-29 14:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
d4b9718a 2022-12-29 15:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
35536f21 2022-12-29 16:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
e6c4c82a 2022-12-29 17:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
64be62c2 2022-12-29 18:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
47bb29bc 2022-12-29 19:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
f73e2f84 2022-12-29 20:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
adff5f08 2022-12-29 21:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
1f647bdc 2022-12-29 22:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
f18da850 2022-12-30 00:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
ee41dabb 2022-12-30 01:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
063e561e 2022-12-30 02:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
6c43ee77 2022-12-30 03:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
5967bd00 2022-12-30 04:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
5b97abc0 2022-12-30 05:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b642cf8e 2022-12-30 06:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
03aad30a 2022-12-30 07:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
00088559 2022-12-30 08:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
868b532d 2022-12-30 09:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
daf7416b 2022-12-30 10:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
461339ed 2022-12-30 11:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
d0abcc5b 2022-12-30 12:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
febc08be 2022-12-30 13:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
82337059 2022-12-30 14:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
3aba444c 2022-12-30 15:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
83d39387 2022-12-30 16:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
7bbe4ac6 2022-12-30 17:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
712dca9d 2022-12-30 18:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
ddeec78c 2022-12-30 19:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
7d023178 2022-12-30 20:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
212be964 2022-12-30 21:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
69697da7 2022-12-30 22:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
6ff170e4 2022-12-31 00:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
077b2bd9 2022-12-31 01:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
d031315d 2022-12-31 02:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
09a1c296 2022-12-31 03:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
8b159d8b 2022-12-31 04:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
eb004144 2022-12-31 05:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
286a2b66 2022-12-31 06:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
248e831b 2022-12-31 07:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
c324aab2 2022-12-31 08:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
380e7566 2022-12-31 09:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
4ba8568d 2022-12-31 10:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
91caf3be 2022-12-31 11:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
213fd232 2022-12-31 12:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
7a8d7de5 2022-12-31 13:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
43f6da4c 2022-12-31 14:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
49a9a3be 2022-12-31 15:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
1af816cd 2022-12-31 16:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
1e50584c 2022-12-31 17:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
a53d431e 2022-12-31 18:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
1b1e0795 2022-12-31 19:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
7bcd3996 2022-12-31 20:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
1542bd9d 2022-12-31 21:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
e45f0a17 2022-12-31 22:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
3ec2578f 2023-01-01 00:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
c1ac6d30 2023-01-01 01:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
52d6b535 2023-01-01 02:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
60987619 2023-01-01 03:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b176a46a 2023-01-01 04:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
08e58b8d 2023-01-01 05:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
db075305 2023-01-01 06:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b077f1d1 2023-01-01 07:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
7453f62d 2023-01-01 08:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
42b7654e 2023-01-01 09:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
a9ae67a5 2023-01-01 10:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
da32f883 2023-01-01 11:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
a9ebfc4c 2023-01-01 12:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
c6905e1c 2023-01-01 13:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
9f6a6baa 2023-01-01 14:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
716c2cea 2023-01-01 15:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b5a120a1 2023-01-01 16:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
ecba02bd 2023-01-01 17:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
3ef2ca8c 2023-01-01 18:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
f3039c58 2023-01-01 19:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
99d4ea01 2023-01-01 20:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
548a3d83 2023-01-01 21:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
9de2959b 2023-01-01 22:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
98944292 2023-01-02 00:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
683135fd 2023-01-02 01:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
ccd08b94 2023-01-02 02:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
230c1fdf 2023-01-02 03:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
5499ad9f 2023-01-02 04:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
41e40927 2023-01-02 05:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
899ac841 2023-01-02 06:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
ae6fee5f 2023-01-02 07:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
85bed7e5 2023-01-02 08:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
b46e6ce0 2023-01-02 09:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
3ff36509 2023-01-02 10:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
deec8f55 2023-01-02 11:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
990cd8e7 2023-01-02 12:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
3e01debb 2023-01-02 13:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
333c5db2 2023-01-02 14:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
d2cf7ebe 2023-01-02 15:45:02 octopi-b1 /home/pi
94125754 2023-01-02 16:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
baeecf08 2023-01-02 17:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
e9b285ef 2023-01-02 18:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
270f28a9 2023-01-02 19:45:01 octopi-b1 /home/pi
---------------------------------------------------------------
116 snapshots
[... prune info ...]
So in this case it kept 55 snapshots and deleted 116, and then cleaned up. I created a prune script similar to the backup script:
$ cat ~/bin/prune
#!/bin/bash
source ${HOME}/.restic/environment.sh
/usr/local/bin/restic forget --keep-within 1d --keep-within-daily 30d --keep-within-weekly 1y --prune
then created a crontab entry to prune one a day:
59 23 * * * /home/pi/bin/prune >> /tmp/restic.log 2>&1
Edited to add:
This only backs up what is in /home/pi, which won't include things like a postgress database, etc.
The plugin FilamentManager uses such a postgress database if you're trying to share a DB across multiple octoprint instances, so here's how to back that up as well:
Create a file called .pgpass in the home directory:
nano ~/.pgpass
And fill it with something like:
localhost:5432:octoprint_filamentmanager:octoprint:ThisIsNotMyRealPassword
and make it readable only by the local pi user:
chmod 600 ~/.pgpass
then add a line to the ~/bin/backup script to dump the DB into a directory that gets backed up:
pg_dump -h localhost -U octoprint octoprint_filamentmanager | gzip > /home/pi/.octoprint/data/filamentmanager/db_dump.sql.gz
And now when the backups run, they'll back up a dump of the databse as well.
Read up on how to restore from your snapshots as well.