marc0janssen / macos-restic-backup

Bash scripts to automatically run Restic backups

macOS Restic Backup

Bash scripts to automatically run Restic backups when the repository is available.

The script ensures that the specified Restic Repository is available and then initiates a backup process which backs up each directory listed in the configuration file .restic_backup.conf. The script runs as a launchd job every 4 minutes.

Set Up

To install, first create and initialize two restic repositories; one for local backups and another for remote backups. Local backups will provide a higher resolution history of changes while the remote backups will act as a long-term backup. It is important that the password for both repositories is the same, as they will share the use of an environment variable.

restic init --repo /path/to/localrepo
restic init --repo /path/to/remoterepo

Note that this is not the most secure way to store a password, it does however help contain the application and keep things simple.

A modification should be made to com.cbergoon.restic_cleanup_remote.plist, com.cbergoon.restic_cleanup_remote.plist, com.cbergoon.restic_backup_local.plist and, com.cbergoon.restic_backup_remote.plist to point the scripts to proper Restic repository and specify the password to use.

// com.cbergoon.restic_backup_local.plist
...
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/restic_backup.sh</string>
        <string>"/path/to/localrepo"</string>
        <string>testpass</string>
    </array>
...

// com.cbergoon.restic_backup_remote.plist
...
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/restic_backup.sh</string>
        <string>"/path/to/remoterepo"</string>
        <string>testpass</string>
    </array>
...

Lastly, run the install.sh script which will create the LaunchDaemons.

./install.sh