--- title: "rclone serve restic" description: "Serve the remote for restic's REST API." slug: rclone_serve_restic url: /commands/rclone_serve_restic/ versionIntroduced: v1.40 # autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/serve/restic/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs" --- # rclone serve restic Serve the remote for restic's REST API. ## Synopsis Run a basic web server to serve a remote over restic's REST backend API over HTTP. This allows restic to use rclone as a data storage mechanism for cloud providers that restic does not support directly. [Restic](https://restic.net/) is a command-line program for doing backups. The server will log errors. Use -v to see access logs. `--bwlimit` will be respected for file transfers. Use `--stats` to control the stats printing. ## Setting up rclone for use by restic ### First [set up a remote for your chosen cloud provider](/docs/#configure). Once you have set up the remote, check it is working with, for example "rclone lsd remote:". You may have called the remote something other than "remote:" - just substitute whatever you called it in the following instructions. Now start the rclone restic server rclone serve restic -v remote:backup Where you can replace "backup" in the above by whatever path in the remote you wish to use. By default this will serve on "localhost:8080" you can change this with use of the `--addr` flag. You might wish to start this server on boot. Adding `--cache-objects=false` will cause rclone to stop caching objects returned from the List call. Caching is normally desirable as it speeds up downloading objects, saves transactions and uses very little memory. ## Setting up restic to use rclone ### Now you can [follow the restic instructions](http://restic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/030_preparing_a_new_repo.html#rest-server) on setting up restic. Note that you will need restic 0.8.2 or later to interoperate with rclone. For the example above you will want to use "http://localhost:8080/" as the URL for the REST server. For example: $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/ $ export RESTIC_PASSWORD=yourpassword $ restic init created restic backend 8b1a4b56ae at rest:http://localhost:8080/ Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost. $ restic backup /path/to/files/to/backup scan [/path/to/files/to/backup] scanned 189 directories, 312 files in 0:00 [0:00] 100.00% 38.128 MiB / 38.128 MiB 501 / 501 items 0 errors ETA 0:00 duration: 0:00 snapshot 45c8fdd8 saved ### Multiple repositories #### Note that you can use the endpoint to host multiple repositories. Do this by adding a directory name or path after the URL. Note that these **must** end with /. Eg $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user1repo/ # backup user1 stuff $ export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=rest:http://localhost:8080/user2repo/ # backup user2 stuff ### Private repositories #### The`--private-repos` flag can be used to limit users to repositories starting with a path of `//`. ## Server options Use `--addr` to specify which IP address and port the server should listen on, eg `--addr 1.2.3.4:8000` or `--addr :8080` to listen to all IPs. By default it only listens on localhost. You can use port :0 to let the OS choose an available port. If you set `--addr` to listen on a public or LAN accessible IP address then using Authentication is advised - see the next section for info. You can use a unix socket by setting the url to `unix:///path/to/socket` or just by using an absolute path name. Note that unix sockets bypass the authentication - this is expected to be done with file system permissions. `--addr` may be repeated to listen on multiple IPs/ports/sockets. `--server-read-timeout` and `--server-write-timeout` can be used to control the timeouts on the server. Note that this is the total time for a transfer. `--max-header-bytes` controls the maximum number of bytes the server will accept in the HTTP header. `--baseurl` controls the URL prefix that rclone serves from. By default rclone will serve from the root. If you used `--baseurl "/rclone"` then rclone would serve from a URL starting with "/rclone/". This is useful if you wish to proxy rclone serve. Rclone automatically inserts leading and trailing "/" on `--baseurl`, so `--baseurl "rclone"`, `--baseurl "/rclone"` and `--baseurl "/rclone/"` are all treated identically. ### TLS (SSL) By default this will serve over http. If you want you can serve over https. You will need to supply the `--cert` and `--key` flags. If you wish to do client side certificate validation then you will need to supply `--client-ca` also. `--cert` should be a either a PEM encoded certificate or a concatenation of that with the CA certificate. `--key` should be the PEM encoded private key and `--client-ca` should be the PEM encoded client certificate authority certificate. --min-tls-version is minimum TLS version that is acceptable. Valid values are "tls1.0", "tls1.1", "tls1.2" and "tls1.3" (default "tls1.0"). ### Authentication By default this will serve files without needing a login. You can either use an htpasswd file which can take lots of users, or set a single username and password with the `--user` and `--pass` flags. If no static users are configured by either of the above methods, and client certificates are required by the `--client-ca` flag passed to the server, the client certificate common name will be considered as the username. Use `--htpasswd /path/to/htpasswd` to provide an htpasswd file. This is in standard apache format and supports MD5, SHA1 and BCrypt for basic authentication. Bcrypt is recommended. To create an htpasswd file: touch htpasswd htpasswd -B htpasswd user htpasswd -B htpasswd anotherUser The password file can be updated while rclone is running. Use `--realm` to set the authentication realm. Use `--salt` to change the password hashing salt from the default. ``` rclone serve restic remote:path [flags] ``` ## Options ``` --addr stringArray IPaddress:Port or :Port to bind server to (default [127.0.0.1:8080]) --append-only Disallow deletion of repository data --baseurl string Prefix for URLs - leave blank for root --cache-objects Cache listed objects (default true) --cert string TLS PEM key (concatenation of certificate and CA certificate) --client-ca string Client certificate authority to verify clients with -h, --help help for restic --htpasswd string A htpasswd file - if not provided no authentication is done --key string TLS PEM Private key --max-header-bytes int Maximum size of request header (default 4096) --min-tls-version string Minimum TLS version that is acceptable (default "tls1.0") --pass string Password for authentication --private-repos Users can only access their private repo --realm string Realm for authentication --salt string Password hashing salt (default "dlPL2MqE") --server-read-timeout Duration Timeout for server reading data (default 1h0m0s) --server-write-timeout Duration Timeout for server writing data (default 1h0m0s) --stdio Run an HTTP2 server on stdin/stdout --user string User name for authentication ``` See the [global flags page](/flags/) for global options not listed here. ## SEE ALSO * [rclone serve](/commands/rclone_serve/) - Serve a remote over a protocol.