I’d like to confirm a few points with regards to using Restic to backup my file shares using Nethserver Backup.
I see in this post from 2018 that it’s mentioned that running a prune job is necessary to reclaim space when using Restic. Is this still true in 2020? I have a retention period set for my Restic Backups using Nethserver Backup. Is there more I need to do in order to ensure my space is reclaimed?
Secondly…I’m looking for information on turning on dedupe when using Restic. I seem to recall a post regarding dedupe but I can’t find it now when I search. Does Restic automatically use Dedupe when backing up using Nethserver Backup? If not then how do I enable Dedupe using Nethserver Backup and Restic?
I hope you don’t mind my adding my own question about Restic here. I’ve just started using it–I set up a backup job to S3 (DigialOcean Spaces, specifically) a couple of weeks ago, and I set up a second job via NFS to my FreeNAS box about a week ago. Both run daily, and are otherwise configured with default settings other than retention (14 days on DO, 28 days locally). But the local copy is about 3x as large as the one on DO–the former takes 394 GB on my pool, while the latter is 129 GB. This seems like a strange discrepancy–any idea why it’s happening?
As above, the “local” (i.e., the total size of the Restic backup on my FreeNAS box) is 394 GB. The size used on DO for what should be the same purpose is 129 GB. I’m not sure if that answers your question–if not, can you clarify?
Again, I’m not sure I understand the question. I’m storing backups in two locations–DO Spaces via S3, and my local FreeNAS box via NFS (plus a third via Duplicati, but that’s a separate issue). There shouldn’t be any case where the backup set for one destination is itself saved in the backup to another destination (and if it were, I’d consider that a pretty serious bug). And since the total disk usage on the Neth server is a little under 120 GB, I’m pretty sure this isn’t happening.
Retention period should be sufficient - those old posts do refer to a time when Restic was still “in testing”…
But it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on storage usage…
Just last week a client of mine started using NextCloud massively for file storage. I did up the NethServer storage allocation on NAS… But I did forget the growth on the ProxMox Backups underneath - took me two days to realize that error!
I have noticed my backup size on my S3 has grown more than I thought it should. I’ll confirm my retention is working as it should.
As for dedupe, is there a setting or config I can look at in Nethserver to confirm dedupe is enabled? I think it’s useful to know where settings are at to better understand how Nethserver works.
Regarding the prune job using Restic. I don’t think it’s working for me. I’ve created 5 new shared folders and not much new files are going into them yet (as they are not production yet). I have a daily job running in Nethserver to backup each shared folder using Restic to my S3 account (vendor provider). I should see major dedupe efficiency since not much of my data is changing. And I would have thought that with pruning setup for 7 days older backups would drop off. Instead I’m seeing my folders each grow to very large in size on my S3 storage. I did have a problem with locked files for a while which meant that the jobs were failing. I’m wondering if these failed jobs with lock files has messed up my backups and not pruned or cleaned up old backups properly.
I know you mentioned that prune job is scheduled automatically but how do I confirm it’s pruning?
Is there a command I can run to initiate the Restic backup (manually) where I can see the prune job work or not?
Any advice you can provide for me would be greatly appreciated.
My main doubt is how to restore the files and configurations of a bucket in the backblaze b2 in a new clean installation of the same version of the generated backup? It’s possible? I’ve been studying ways for days and haven’t found a solution yet. Thanks for the help!
