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How to Install and Configure Restic on Ubuntu and AlmaLinux Servers

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Restic is a modern, fast, and secure backup program that supports multiple storage backends including local storage, S3-compatible services, SFTP, and more. It features encryption, deduplication, and incremental backups making it an excellent choice for server backup strategies.

This guide covers installing and configuring Restic on both Ubuntu Server and AlmaLinux (RHEL-compatible) distributions, including repository initialization, automated backups via systemd timers, and best practices for production environments.

Restic backup workflow: Initialize → Snapshot → Verify → Prune

Prerequisites

Installing Restic on Ubuntu Server

Method 1: Official Repository (Recommended)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install restic

Method 2: Latest Version via Binary

# Download latest release
VERSION=0.17.3
wget https://github.com/restic/restic/releases/download/v${VERSION}/restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64.bz2
bunzip2 restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64.bz2
sudo install -m 755 restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/restic
restic version

Installing Restic on AlmaLinux / RHEL

Method 1: EPEL Repository

sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf install restic

Method 2: Latest Version via Binary

# Same binary method as Ubuntu
VERSION=0.17.3
wget https://github.com/restic/restic/releases/download/v${VERSION}/restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64.bz2
bunzip2 restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64.bz2
sudo install -m 755 restic_${VERSION}_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/restic
restic version

Initialize a Backup Repository

Before creating backups, you need to initialize a repository. The repository can be local or remote.

Local Repository

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=/mnt/backup/restic-repo
restic init

S3-Compatible (MinIO, AWS S3, Wasabi, etc.)

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=s3:https://minio.example.com/bucket-name
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-s...stic init

SFTP Repository

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=sftp:user@backup-server:/path/to/repo
restic init

Note: You’ll be prompted to enter a repository password. Use a strong password and store it securely — you cannot recover data without it!

Create Your First Backup

# Backup /etc and /home
restic backup /etc /home

# Backup with exclusions
restic backup /home --exclude-caches --exclude '*.tmp' --exclude '*.log'

# Backup with custom tag
restic backup /var/www --tag "web-content"

Automate Backups with systemd Timers

Create a systemd service and timer for daily automated backups.

1. Create the service file

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/restic-backup.service > /dev/null

2. Create the environment file

sudo mkdir -p /etc/restic
sudo tee /etc/restic/env > /dev/null

3. Create the timer

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/restic-backup.timer > /dev/null

4. Enable and start

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now restic-backup.timer
systemctl list-timers --all | grep restic

Verify and Restore Backups

List Snapshots

restic snapshots

Verify Repository Integrity

restic check
restic check --read-data  # Full data verification (slower)

Restore Files

# Restore latest snapshot to /tmp/restore
restic restore latest --target /tmp/restore

# Restore specific path from specific snapshot
restic restore abc1234 --target /tmp/restore --include /etc/nginx

Pruning Old Backups

Retention policies keep your repository size manageable:

# Keep 7 daily, 4 weekly, 6 monthly snapshots
restic forget --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4 --keep-monthly 6 --prune

Platform-Specific Considerations

Ubuntu Server

AlmaLinux / RHEL

Security Best Practices

Monitoring and Alerting

Add a simple health check to your monitoring stack:

#!/bin/bash
# /usr/local/bin/restic-health-check
restic snapshots --latest 1 --json | jq -r '.[0].time' > /tmp/last-backup
AGE=$(( $(date +%s) - $(date -d "$(cat /tmp/last-backup)" +%s) ))
if [ $AGE -gt 90000 ]; then  # 25 hours
  echo "ALERT: Backup older than 25 hours"
  exit 1
fi
exit 0

Conclusion

Restic provides a robust, cross-platform backup solution that works identically on Ubuntu and AlmaLinux. Its encryption, deduplication, and multiple backend support make it suitable for everything from single-server setups to distributed infrastructure. By automating with systemd timers and implementing retention policies, you get a "set and forget" backup system that's actually recoverable when disaster strikes.

For advanced use cases, explore restic mount for browsing snapshots as a FUSE filesystem, restic serve for running your own REST backup server, and resticprofile for YAML-driven backup configurations.

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