Restic 0.14.0 Released

[CoordSpace]

The upstream update I know many of us have been waiting for has finally dropped. Along with compression, there are a number of other options and features that users will probably want exposed for configuration in resticker. Here are the release highlights:

https://restic.net/blog/2022-08-25/restic-0.14.0-released/

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This release contains a highly anticipated feature in restic - compression! To start using it, either initialize a new repository (which defaults to repository version 2 and therefore supports compression) or upgrade your current repository. The compression level can be changed from the default auto (fast and efficient) to max or off using the --compression option (or the corresponding environment variable). Please note that the new/upgraded repository can only be accessed by restic version 0.14 or higher.

Another feature that can be highly useful is the --unsafe-recover-no-free-space option to the prune command, which allows you to save the day when the repository storage has been completely saturated. Just make sure to read the corresponding documentation first!

Besides the above, here are some other notable fixes and improvements in this release:

• Ability to tune the number of concurrent backend connections, increasing backup performance.
• Ability to increase pack size, increasing backup performance and using less storage resources.
• The check --read-data and prune commands no longer uses temporary files when reading from the repository, resulting in less disk I/O.
• The copy command’s performance has been greatly improved.
• The init and copy commands have a new --from-repo option, replacing the now deprecated --repo2 option.
• The backup command now uses around 30% less memory when backing up directories with hundreds of thousands (or more) files.

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It isn't recommended to upgrade your resticker-managed repos yet since it's still using the previous version but I did want to post the upgrade instructions since it will be a useful reference as 0.14.X support is patched into the project:

https://restic.readthedocs.io/en/stable/045_working_with_repos.html#upgrading-the-repository-format-version

Cheers and thanks for the wonderful software!

[djmaze]

Yes, very nice!

[Jimmy-SafeCash]

@djmaze How do we specify compression in your image? (I'm using docker compose if that makes a difference). Will I have to delete existing backups or will it apply it from this point onwards?

[djmaze]

@Jimmy-SafeCash I did not try it yet, but it seems if you either have a repository in format version 2 or you upgrade your existing repository (which might work using docker compose exec restic migrate upgrade_repo_v2), restic will from then on use compression automatically.