linkCron

Often it is usefully to trigger backups automatically. For this we can specify a cron attribute to each location.

.autorestic.yml
1linklocations:

2link  my-location:

3link    from: /data

4link    to: my-backend

5link    cron: '0 3 * * 0' # Every Sunday at 3:00

Here is a awesome website with some examples and an explorer

linkInstalling the cron

This has to be done only once, regardless of now many cron jobs you have in your config file.

To actually enable cron jobs you need something to call autorestic cron on a timed schedule. Note that the schedule has nothing to do with the cron attribute in each location. My advise would be to trigger the command every 5min, but if you have a cronjob that runs only once a week, it's probably enough to schedule it once a day.

linkCrontab

Here is an example using crontab, but systemd would do too.

First, open your crontab in edit mode

1link$crontab -e

Then paste this at the bottom of the file and save it. Note that in this specific example the config file is located at one of the default locations (e.g. ~/.autorestic.yml). If your config is somewhere else you'll need to specify it using the -c option.

1link$# This is required, as it otherwise cannot find restic as a command.

2link$PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"

3link$

4link$# Example running every 5 minutes

5link$*/5 * * * * autorestic -c /path/to/my/.autorestic.yml --ci cron

The --ci option is not required, but recommended

To debug a cron job you can use

1link$*/5 * * * * autorestic -c /path/to/my/.autorestic.yml --ci cron > /tmp/autorestic.log 2>&1

Now you can add as many cron attributes as you wish in the config file ⏱

Also note that manually triggered backups with autorestic backup will not influence the cron timeline, they are willingly not linked.