Manual backup restore

This guide shows how to restore backups from an SSH backup server to a local computer. It is useful when the Quollix server is unavailable and you want to inspect or recover backup data manually.

Requirements

Before starting, make sure you have:

• backup server settings:
  • the backup server host
  • the SSH user
  • the SSH password
  • the Restic encryption password
• Installed tools:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openssh-client sshpass restic

Setup

Enter the required passwords and set the Restic repository:

read -rsp 'SSH password: ' SSHPASS; echo; export SSHPASS
read -rsp 'Restic password: ' RESTIC_PASSWORD; echo; export RESTIC_PASSWORD

export RESTIC_REPOSITORY='sftp::backups'
export RESTIC_SFTP_COMMAND='sftp.command=sshpass -e ssh -p <ssh-port> -s <ssh-user>@<host> sftp'

On first execution, accept the SSH host key once:

ssh -p <ssh-port> <ssh-user>@<host>

Output may look like this:

The authenticity of host '[<host>]:23 ([...]:23)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is: SHA256:...
This key is not known by any other names.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?

Enter yes and press Enter to accept the host key. Then output may look like this:

Warning: Permanently added '[<host>]:23' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
u613270@u613270.your-storagebox.de's password:

Abort with CTRL+C since we don’t want to create an actual SSH connection.

Restore backups

List the available snapshots:

restic -o "$RESTIC_SFTP_COMMAND" snapshots
restic -o "$RESTIC_SFTP_COMMAND" snapshots | grep <app-name>

To restore a specific snapshot, copy its snapshot ID from restic snapshots and run:

restic -o "$RESTIC_SFTP_COMMAND" restore <snapshot-id> --target ./restored-backup

Restored backup folder structure

In the folder ./restored-backup/source will be the following files:

• docker-compose.yml for deploying the app
• meta.yml containing app metadata used by Quollix
• a list of docker volume folders containing the Docker volumes content. For example, restoring a backup of the Nextcloud app yields the folders:
  • quollix_nextcloud_mariadb
  • quollix_nextcloud_nextcloud
  • quollix_nextcloud_redis