Upcoming changes for the S3 backend

25 Nov 2017

TL;DR: If you’re using the s3 backend and cannot access your repo any more, append the path /restic to the repository location.

We’ve just merged Pull Request #1437 which resolves an issue with the S3 backend reported in #1292. When the next restic version is released (or you’re using the master branch directly), this may require modifying the repository location you’re passing to restic.

In order to access a repository stored on S3, restic requires the following information:

• The endpoint address: For Amazon S3, it’s s3.amazonaws.com, for a custom hosted Minio server it may be https://minio.example.com.
• The bucket name (e.g. backup-servers)
• The path within the bucket (e.g. /repo-server1)

The endpoint address and bucket name are required for operation, but the path is optional. When the path is not set or empty, restic used to use the default path /restic within the bucket. This has now changed: When the path is not set or empty, the repository is put at the root of the bucket, so the path is /.

This change was made so that it is possible to have the repository directly in the root of the bucket. The default path /restic within the bucket only existed for historical reasons and was never properly documented.

So, if you did not specify a path within the bucket, you’ll now get an error that the repo cannot be found:

$ restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/backup-servers snapshots
unable to open config file: Stat: The specified key does not exist.
Is there a repository at the following location?
s3:s3.amazonaws.com/backup-servers

Then you’ll need to add the path /restic now in order to access an existing repo, like this:

$ restic -r s3:s3.amazonaws.com/backup-servers/restic snapshots

As always, if you have feedback for us, please use the forum embedded below or (if you experience a bug) create a new issue on GitHub. Thanks!