Restore - Restoring from backup
Restoring from a snapshot is as easy as it sounds, just use the following
command to restore the contents of the latest snapshot to /tmp/restore-work:
$ rustic restore 79766175 /tmp/restore-work
enter password for repository:
restoring <Snapshot of [/home/user/work] at 2015-05-08 21:40:19.884408621 +0200 CEST> to /tmp/restore-work
Use the word latest to restore the last backup. You can also combine latest
with the --filter-host and --filter-path filters to choose the last backup
for a specific host, path or both.
$ rustic restore latest /tmp/restore-art --filter-path "/home/art" --filter-host luigi
enter password for repository:
restoring <Snapshot of [/home/art] at 2015-05-08 21:45:17.884408621 +0200 CEST> to /tmp/restore-art
Note: When restoring specific paths, it’s recommended to use the source path
syntax latest:/path/to/restore/ followed by the destination path.
For example:
$ rustic restore latest:/home/user/bin/ /home/user/bin/
This is more efficient as it only processes the specified subtree in the snapshot and destination, rather than scanning the entire backup or destination folder.
You can use the command rustic ls latest to find the path to the file within
the snapshot.
Important Notes
- Restores the permissions of the files and directories to the state they were in when the snapshot was taken
- GUIDs and UIDs will be restored as well (this requires elevated privileges to work correctly)
- The glob pattern feature (
--glob) is not yet fully implemented for scanning restrictions - Always include trailing slashes for directory paths to ensure consistent behavior
- The source path should be relative to the snapshot’s root
- The destination path should be an absolute or relative path on your local system
Troubleshooting
If you’re experiencing slow restore operations, check if you’re:
- Using glob patterns instead of direct paths
- Targeting the root directory (/) unnecessarily
- Missing trailing slashes in your directory paths