IT Solutions Technology Blog

Restic REST-Server  – compared to the SFTP backend the REST backend has better performance especially so if you can skip additional crypto overhead by using plain HTTP transport (restic already properly encrypts all data it sends so using HTTPS is mostly about authentication)

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server# wget https://github.com/restic/rest-server/releases/download/v0.14.0/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server#

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server# tar -xvf rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64/CHANGELOG.md
rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64/LICENSE
rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64/README.md
rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64/rest-Server

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64# ls -la
total 9316
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 25 08:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 25 08:31 ..
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 20926 May 31 2025 CHANGELOG.md
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 1421 May 31 2025 LICENSE
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 11634 May 31 2025 README.md
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 9486520 May 31 2025 rest-server

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64# chmod +x rest-Server

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64# ./rest-server –version
rest-server version rest-server 0.14.0 compiled with go1.24.3 on linux/amd64

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64#

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64# mv rest-server /usr/local/bin/

root@pve-rest-server-01:~/rest-server/rest-server_0.14.0_linux_amd64#

root@pve-rest-server-01:/usr/local/bin# ls -la
total 9276
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 25 08:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Apr 29 17:23 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9486520 May 31 2025 rest-server

root@pve-rest-server-01:/usr/local/bin#

root@pve-rest-server-01:~#
root@pve-rest-server-01:~# mkdir -p /mnt/USB-Stick-extern
root@pve-rest-server-01:~#
root@pve-rest-server-01:~# rest-server –path /mnt/USB-Stick-extern –no-auth
Data directory: /mnt/USB-Stick-extern
Authentication disabled
Append only mode disabled
Private repositories disabled
Group accessible repos disabled
start server on [::]:8000

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r rest:http://root:'<password>’@192.168.1.194:8000 init
enter password for new repository:
enter password again:
created restic repository a552e9d06a at rest:http://root:***@192.168.1.194:8000/

Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access
the repository. Losing your password means that your data is
irrecoverably lost.

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r rest:http://root:'<password>’@192.168.1.194:8000 backup /resilio-sync.data/USB-Stick
enter password for repository:
repository a552e9d0 opened (version 2, compression level auto)
created new cache in /root/.cache/restic
no parent snapshot found, will read all files
[0:00] 0 index files loaded

Files: 20843 new, 0 changed, 0 unmodified
Dirs: 700 new, 0 changed, 0 unmodified
Added to the repository: 6.432 GiB (4.491 GiB stored)

processed 20843 files, 7.377 GiB in 2:56:31
snapshot 1f211ad1 saved

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

To use ‚systemd‚ in Linux you primarily interact with it through the ‚systemctl‚ command line tool and  ‚systemd‚ is the system and service manager that initializes your OS components and manages background processes (referred to as units)

root@pve-rest-server-01: /etc/systemd/system# vi rest-server.service
[Unit]
Description=Rest Server
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/rest-server –path /mnt/USB-Stick-extern –no-auth –listen :8000
Restart=Always
User=root
Group=root

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

root@pve-rest-server-01:/etc/systemd/system# systemctl daemon-reload

root@pve-rest-server-01:/etc/systemd/system# systemctl enable rest-server

root@pve-rest-server-01:/etc/systemd/system# systemctl start rest-Server

root@pve-rest-server-01:/etc/systemd/system# systemctl status rest-Server
● rest-server.service – Rest Server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/rest-server.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2026-09-25 19:09:33 UTC; 5min ago
Invocation: 801c5f0a9f844645b340de947890924c
Main PID: 2846 (rest-server)
Tasks: 6 (limit: 16700)
Memory: 1.7M (peak: 1.9M)
CPU: 21ms
CGroup: /system.slice/rest-server.service
└─2846 /usr/local/bin/rest-server –path /mnt/USB-Stick-extern –no-auth –listen :8000

Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 systemd[1]: Started rest-server.service – Rest Server.
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: Data directory: /mnt/USB-Stick-extern
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: Authentication disabled
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: Append only mode disabled
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: Private repositories disabled
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: Group accessible repos disabled
Sep 25 19:09:33 pve-rest-server-01 rest-server[2846]: start server on [::]:8000

root@pve-rest-server-01:/etc/systemd/system#

Repository Architecture & Sizing – managing large-scale datasets (tens to hundreds of terabytes) the performance depends less on the total volume of data and more on the total number of files and how you structure your workflow because restic maintains an index of all data blocks in system memory during operations scalability requires careful planning around RAM pack sizes and backend selection

File count vs. data volume – performance is constrained more by the total number of files than raw Gigabytes budget roughly 1 GB of RAM per 7 million unique files and 1 GB of RAM per 7 TB of data as a rough scaling baseline

Split into multiple repositories- instead of one massive repo divide your data into separate logical repositories (e.g. by service host or data tier) this lowers peak RAM usage during operations like check and prune

Tune pack sizes – for large repositories consider increasing the default pack size using –pack-size (e.g. 50 MB) on initialization/commands to reduce the total number of pack files and lower index memory overhead

This allows you to browse all your backups directly using your file manager or terminal

Create an empty folder where the backup will be mounted

# mkdir ~/restic-mount

Mount the repository

# restic -r /path/to/repo mount ~/restic-mount

Unmount when finished

# umount ~/restic-mount

Restic – has a native copy command built specifically for this purpose because it copies snapshots from one repository to another while re-encrypting the data using the target repository’s unique key this allows you to keep a secondary backup with a different password

Initialize the secondary target repository

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r /mnt/USB-Stick-backup-repo init
enter password for new repository:
enter password again:
created restic repository 69374ce921 at /mnt/USB-Stick-backup-repo

Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access
the repository. Losing your password means that your data is
irrecoverably lost.

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

Copy the snapshots from your primary repository

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r /path/to/backup-repo copy –from-repo /path/to/primary-repo

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r /path/to/backup-repo copy –from-repo /path/to/primary-repo <Snapshot-ID>

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# restic -r /mnt/USB-Stick-backup-repo copy –from-repo /mnt/USB-Stick latest
enter password for source repository:
repository c13f3caf opened (version 2, compression level auto)
enter password for repository:
repository 69374ce9 opened (version 2, compression level auto)
created new cache in /root/.cache/restic
[0:03] 100.00% 5 / 5 index files loaded
[0:00] 0 index files loaded

snapshot e8933a68 of [/resilio-sync.data/USB-Stick] at 2026-09-21 19:05:01.753251041 +0200 CEST by root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01
copy started, this may take a while…
[2:51:02] 100.00% 290 / 290 packs copied
snapshot 54291b32 saved, copied from source snapshot e8933a68

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

Pros:  Secure (uses a different password) and you can selectively copy only the latest or specific snapshots
Cons: Takes more CPU power than a simple file transfer because data is re-encrypted

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# apt-get install cifs-utils
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
cifs-utils is already the newest version (2:6.11-3.1+deb11u2).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# vi /root/.smbcredentials
username=pi
password=<password>

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# chmod 600 /root/.smbcredentials

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# mkdir /mnt/USB-Stick.extern

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# vi /etc/fstab
…
//192.168.1.139/share-01 /mnt/USB-Stick.extern cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,uid=0,gid=0,x-systemd.automount,_netdev,nofail 0 0

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# systemctl daemon-reload

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# mount -a

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~# df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 122567116 21085928 96438888 18% /
devtmpfs 88508 0 88508 0% /dev
tmpfs 219796 0 219796 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 87920 1012 86908 2% /run
tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock
/dev/mmcblk0p1 261106 51636 209470 20% /boot
tmpfs 43956 20 43936 1% /run/user/1000
//192.168.1.139/share-01 119631576 11051152 108580424 10% /mnt/USB-Stick.extern

root@rpi-iot-jsho-rslsync-01:~#